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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29925732">Ease One Life the Aching</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics'>inexplicifics</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Shall Not Live In Vain [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bonding, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Explicit Sexual Content, Kaer Morhen's Fanon Hot Springs (The Witcher), M/M, Multi, Pack Feels, Past Rape/Non-con, Revenge, Singing, Stabbing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:36:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29925732</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier isn't a ruined omega anymore - no, he's a <i>pack</i> omega now. But figuring out what that means while they're out on the Path isn't always easy...and there's the looming prospect of encountering an old enemy one more time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Coen/Gardis/Aubry, Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Lambert, Jaskier | Dandelion &amp; Coen, Jaskier | Dandelion &amp; Valdo Marx, Jaskier | Dandelion &amp; Vesemir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Shall Not Live In Vain [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200587</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>291</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1277</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gwen comes in to luncheon still stomping the snow off his boots, and slumps down next to Clovis with a heavy sigh. “Trail’ll be clear by this time next week, less’n we get another snowstorm through.”</p><p>Jaskier had almost forgotten that this interlude - this winter in a crumbling but still-solid keep, surrounded by Wolves (and a single Griffin) - must, inevitably, end. The witchers must go out upon their Path again. And since he cannot imagine that his alphas are going to leave him here - it would rather miss the point of <em>having</em> an omega - that means that he, too, will be going back out into the world.</p><p>But not as a ruined omega.</p><p>Oh, he has no mating marks, no silver-scarred bites upon his throat, but no one with a functioning nose is going to assume that he’s anything but very firmly claimed indeed. He smells of a warm autumn hearth: spiced rum and apples, woodsmoke and roasting chestnuts, rich savory stew, and over all of it the lighter notes of his own cinnamon and citrus.</p><p>The fact that there are <em>three</em> other scents layered over his - three very distinctly <em>alpha</em> scents - <em>is</em> going to confuse people, but Jaskier is fine with that. Let them be baffled. Let them be confused, too, by the knife he wears on his belt; an armed omega is not illegal only because no one in power has ever thought any alpha would be foolish enough to <em>allow</em> their omega to have weaponry. And let them be utterly flabbergasted by the lute - assuming Jaskier is allowed to bring it with him.</p><p>He’ll have to ask Vesemir about that.</p><p>“Ugh, packing,” Gardis sighs. “So we were thinking about doing the northern loop, through Caingorn and Poviss and all, if that’s alright with you, Coën?”</p><p>Coën looks startled. “I...have no jurisdiction over your travels,” he says warily.</p><p>“Well, no, but I figured I’d ask since you’re coming with us.” Gardis props his chin on one hand and grins across the table at the Griffin. “Packmate.”</p><p>Jaskier muffles a giggle as Coën gapes. Aubry chuckles softly, and reaches over to nudge Coën’s mouth closed with a gentle finger. “You <em>can</em> refuse,” the big beta says gently. “Gardis is pushy.”</p><p>“I did not realize I would be welcome,” Coën says, rather faintly. “It would be...very pleasant to have company upon the Path, if you are pleased to allow my intrusion upon your pack.”</p><p>“It’s not an intrusion,” Gardis says. “We <em>want</em> you along.”</p><p>Coën nods, eyes a little wide still. “Then I am honored. And the northern loop is perfectly agreeable to me.”</p><p>“Lovely,” Gardis says, grinning. Jaskier muffles a laugh; Coën looks rather as though he’s just had a bolt of cloth-of-gold dropped on his head: extremely startled and slightly dazed by his good fortune.</p><p>“Flip you for the southern loop?” Gwen asks Geralt, fishing a copper out of his belt-pouch.</p><p>Geralt shakes his head. “Yours this year. We’ve business in Redania.”</p><p>Business in Redania? Jaskier can’t help giving Geralt a startled look. Eskel catches it and winks, which doesn’t help. What business could their pack have in <em>Redania</em>, of all places?</p><p>The witchers spend the rest of the meal discussing the chores they’ll need to do before they set out: last bits of mending, absurd amounts of laundry, the bottling of potions and ingredients. Jaskier listens intently but has nothing to contribute. His own packing is going to be absurdly easy: the clothing his alphas have brought him, a few small toiletry items, and - if he’s lucky - the lute.</p><p>After luncheon, Jaskier follows Vesemir to the kitchens as usual, the other witchers dispersing to their afternoon chores. Vesemir is silent as they wash and dry the dishes - or, to be more precise, he doesn’t <em>speak</em>. He <em>does</em> hum a tune which Jaskier is delighted to realize is one of the songs Jaskier himself has made up this winter. Jaskier hums along, grinning to himself, and Vesemir gives him a warm and approving look.</p><p>Once the dishes are stowed and the evening’s meal - a haunch of venison, which Jaskier seasons without instructions, and a mess of stewed greens, and honey-baked apples for dessert - has been put in to roast, Vesemir says, “Right, pup, time you learned to make hardtack.”</p><p>“That sounds...appetizing?” Jaskier says. Vesemir snorts and tugs gently on a lock of Jaskier’s hair - a gesture he’s started to use in the last few weeks, at times that Jaskier thinks are similar to those where he would affectionately cuff any of the witchers.</p><p>“It’s bland as hell, pup, but it’ll keep you lot alive long enough for the boys to find some contracts and make a little coin.”</p><p>“Ah,” Jaskier says, and pays close attention as Vesemir turns flour, water, and salt into a dry dough and rolls it out.</p><p>“We’ll be making this every day until you all head out,” Vesemir says. “This and dried venison and dried apple slices, keep you going as long as you need to.”</p><p>“...Could we bake the apple slices <em>into</em> the hardtack?” Jaskier ventures.</p><p>“Hm,” Vesemir says, and raises an eyebrow. “We’ll do a batch or two that way, see how it goes.”</p><p>Jaskier grins all the way through making a batch of hardtack of his own.</p><p>*</p><p>Coën is waiting for him outside the library; he bows a little when he sees Jaskier approaching. “May I intrude on your afternoon, gracious omega?”</p><p>“I keep telling you it’s just Jaskier,” Jaskier says, smiling at the Griffin. “And your company is never an intrusion.” He <em>likes</em> Coën: the beta is polite, even-tempered, and well-educated, and has spent several pleasant afternoons discussing poetry with Jaskier and Eskel.</p><p>“Many thanks,” Coën says, bowing Jaskier into the library and sitting down in one of the other armchairs once Jaskier has taken his own seat. “I wished to ask your advice, if you wouldn’t mind.”</p><p>“My advice?” Jaskier says, eyebrows rising. He can’t imagine what advice he could give a <em>witcher</em>. “I am happy to give any advice I can, of course, but what could I have more insight on than you do yourself?”</p><p>Coën smiles a little crookedly. “Well, you’ve experience in being an outsider joining a Wolf pack.”</p><p>“Ah.” Jaskier grins. “I suppose I do, at that.”</p><p>“What ought I expect?” Coën asks.</p><p>“Well, they’re very cuddly,” Jaskier says. “Though I expect you’ve figured that out already. If they’re anything like my three, they’ll prefer to sleep all in a heap with you, rather than in separate bedrolls. And they hunt as a pack - I assume you’ll be part of that, rather than being left in camp to be kept safe, as you’re not a squishy human.” He offers a wry grin, and Coën chuckles.</p><p>“It will be very interesting to adjust to having companions to watch my back during hunts,” he admits. “And they <em>are</em> extremely cuddly, you’re quite correct.” He sighs and rubs a hand over his short-cropped hair. “It has been so long since I lost my Schoolmates, and even before then, we were not so...demonstrative as Wolves are.”</p><p>“They <em>will</em> back off if you want them to,” Jaskier says. He can’t imagine Gardis and Aubry will be any less careful of Coën’s boundaries than his own witchers have been of <em>his</em>.</p><p>“Ah, but I do not desire that,” Coën says, smiling rather dreamily. “I am only astonished at my own good fortune. Have you any advice on...demonstrating my appreciation for their welcoming me into their pack?”</p><p>Jaskier frowns and settles back in his seat a little, running a hand through his own hair. “Honestly? I’m still not entirely sure I’m...doing enough,” he says quietly. “They don’t seem to expect anything of me but my presence, but that seems utterly inadequate in relation to what they have given <em>me</em>.” He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t <em>know</em> what makes someone a good packmate, not really. I just know I’ll do anything I can for them.”</p><p>“Ah,” Coën says. “Well. Then we shall each learn, and perhaps have advice to share with each other come next winter.”</p><p>“I’d like that,” Jaskier says. “This has been...maybe the best winter of my life, to tell the truth. I will be sad to leave these halls.”</p><p>Coën nods. “So too will I. Yet we are not yet parting,” he adds, clearly wrenching himself out of maudlin contemplation with an effort. “Tell me of the songs you are working on, of your courtesy!”</p><p>“Gladly,” Jaskier grins, and leans down to pick up his lute in its case. “I was working on one based on the story Gardis told last week, about the barghest hunt; there’s something wrong with the scansion that I can’t quite pinpoint. Can you help me figure out what’s eluding me?”</p><p>“It would be my honor,” Coën says, and settles back with his hands laced across his stomach as Jaskier begins to play.</p><p>*</p><p>The whole winter has felt like an odd idyll outside of time - isolated from the rest of the world, surrounded by witchers who do<em> not</em> think like humans do, kept safe and made welcome, taught new skills and given the means to use his old talents - but this last week, time returns with a vengeance. Jaskier’s alphas rouse from their winter’s complacency and spend their days bustling about, packing and re-packing their gear, going over every inch of their armor and weaponry and their horses’ tack with eagle eyes, arguing cheerfully with each other about the best routes west through Kaedwen. They’re all keyed up in a way Jaskier hasn’t seen before: they tackle each other on the slightest provocation, roll about growling for a few minutes, and bounce to their feet again to resume conversations as though nothing has happened; they take to swinging by the library or even the kitchens to snuffle at Jaskier’s throat and tousle his hair and then go off again humming; they’re far too fidgety to sleep through the night, taking it in turns to get up and pace while the other two keep Jaskier warm and well-cuddled; and they can’t focus enough to actually <em>fuck</em>, though they’re eager to use their hands and mouths to keep Jaskier thoroughly satisfied, and can be rendered very nearly calm by a combination of kissing and hair-petting, though Jaskier can only soothe one of them at a time.</p><p>It takes Jaskier a couple of days to work up the courage to ask Vesemir whether he can bring the lute with him. Vesemir looks up from the chicken he’s been plucking and fixes Jaskier with a fierce yellow glare.</p><p>“Pup, that lute is <em>yours</em>,” he says. “You can do whatever you please with it.” And then, clearly seeing Jaskier’s incredulity, he sighs and dusts his hands clean and comes over to fold Jaskier into a shockingly comforting embrace. “You’re not here on <em>sufferance</em>, pup,” he murmurs in Jaskier’s ear. “You are <em>pack</em>, and this is your home, and the things you have been given are <em>yours</em>, not temporary loans.”</p><p>Jaskier makes an embarrassing sort of sniffling noise and buries his face against Vesemir’s shoulder, clinging to the old witcher’s tunic. Is this what having a proper father <em>ought</em> to feel like? Someone who teaches and comforts and protects, as solid and sturdy as stone?</p><p>The smell of hot iron is oddly soothing now. Jaskier’s going to have to start spending time near smithies while they’re on the Path.</p><p>Vesemir squeezes hard enough to make Jaskier squeak a little, and then pulls back, planting his hands on Jaskier’s shoulders, and gives him a little shake. “You’re <em>pack</em>, pup,” he says again. “We’ve claimed you, and what Wolves take, we <em>keep</em>.”</p><p>Jaskier swallows hard. “Alright,” he says, voice a little watery. “Thank you.”</p><p>Vesemir shakes his head and leans forward to kiss Jaskier’s forehead gently, warm affection like nothing Jaskier ever got from his sire, and goes back to his chicken. Jaskier sniffles a bit and wipes his eyes and sets about kneading the bread dough properly, feeling Vesemir’s words settling in his chest like embers, warm and comforting as a banked fire.</p><p>*</p><p>That night, wrapped up in Eskel’s arms in their big bed while Geralt and Lambert scuffle cheerfully on the hearth, Jaskier asks, “What business do we have in Redania?”</p><p>“Oxenfurt’s in Redania,” Eskel says, nuzzling Jaskier’s hair contentedly. Jaskier makes a questioning noise. Eskel chuckles. “Well, Oxenfurt’s likely to keep track of its graduates. It’s probably our best lead, unless you know of another way to hunt down this Valdo Marx?”</p><p>Jaskier goes still in shock. “You - we’re really going to do that?”</p><p>Geralt and Lambert stop wrestling, Lambert pinned under Geralt’s weight, and both turn to stare up at Jaskier. “Of <em>course</em> we’re really going to do that, buttercup,” Lambert says incredulously. “How else are you going to get to stab him?”</p><p>“Oh,” Jaskier says. “I - I don’t want to put you to any trouble -”</p><p>Geralt sighs and lets go of Lambert, rolling to his feet and coming over to cup Jaskier’s face in his big hands. “It’s no trouble,” he says. “Plenty of monsters in Redania. No trouble to hunt one more for you.”</p><p>“Precisely,” Eskel agrees. “<em>Someone’s</em> got to do the middle loop this year; stopping at Oxenfurt to see where this Marx knothead ended up isn’t even really a detour. And we’d do far more than this for your sake, and count it no trouble at all.”</p><p>“Oh,” Jaskier says again, staring up rather dazedly into Geralt’s golden eyes. “I don’t know what I’ve done to be worthy of this,” he confesses softly. “You’re so good to me, and I -”</p><p>Lambert interrupts him by clambering right onto the bed and into his lap, shoving Geralt aside and snuggling aggressively against Jaskier, pinning him between Lambert and Eskel’s bulk. “Shut <em>up</em>, buttercup,” he mumbles against Jaskier’s throat. “You don’t gotta be fuckin’ <em>worthy</em>. You love us, and you’re our <em>pack</em>, and that’s fuckin’ <em>it</em>, alright?”</p><p>“I hate to say it, but our little wolf is right,” Eskel says. “You don’t have to do anything to be worthy of our love. You’re pack. That’s enough.”</p><p>“Not little,” Lambert grumbles.</p><p>Jaskier can’t help laughing, and reaches up to scritch his fingers through Lambert’s hair. “Not little,” he agrees. “My big strong alpha.”</p><p>“Damn right,” Lambert says smugly, and snuggles even closer.</p><p>Geralt chuckles, shaking his head with a fond expression, and settles on the bed on Lambert’s other side, curling around him until he can press a soft kiss to Jaskier’s lips. “No debt between pack,” he says. “No need to be <em>worthy</em>. We look out for each other, that’s all.”</p><p>“Alright,” Jaskier says. “I can do that.”</p><p>The next morning, he wakes up to find Geralt sitting on the edge of the bed, toying with a silver chain. He looks up when Jaskier makes a quiet noise of curiosity from within his nest of witchers, and smiles.</p><p>“Pack,” Geralt says quietly, and leans forward, looping the chain around Jaskier’s throat. A pendant thumps gently against Jaskier’s sternum. He frees an arm from under Lambert and reaches up to lift it to his eyes.</p><p>A silver medallion, engraved with a snarling wolf.</p><p>“Oh,” Jaskier says, and feels himself tear up. “<em>Oh</em>.”</p><p>Geralt kisses him, soft and sweet.</p><p>*</p><p>They head down the mountain on a crisp, clear day after a night’s rain; the Trail is absolutely <em>miserable</em> to go down, worse even than it was to climb, but at least they don’t have a wagon. Apparently Vesemir will bring the wagon back down the mountain at some point during the summer, to sell goats’ wool yarn and some of the small handicrafts the witchers made during the winter, and buy flour and salt and other things the witchers cannot make for themselves. Jaskier feels rather sorry for the cranky donkeys who will have to pull the wagon <em>down</em> this horrible excuse for a path, and then go slogging back up it weighed down with sacks of flour.</p><p>He’s up on Scorpion, who is the strongest of the horses; Geralt and Lambert are leading Roach and the nameless gelding. They stop at the same little cave as they did on the way up; the ashes of the fire Clovis’s pack made last night are still heaped near the back wall. Apparently the packs usually stagger their travels by a day or so, to keep from crowding each other on the Trail; Gardis and Aubry and Coën will be leaving Kaer Morhen the following morning.</p><p>Jaskier is rather dismayed to discover that he’s gotten used to sleeping in a bed, and can’t quite get to sleep in the nest of bedrolls, even though he’s cushioned from the stony ground by Eskel’s warm bulk, and sheltered from the chilly air by Geralt and Lambert curled around them both. He’s gotten <em>soft</em> - it used to be he could sleep anywhere, accustomed as he was to hard floors or thin pallets.</p><p>He wriggles carefully out of the heap, stealing one of the outer blankets as he goes, shoves his feet into his boots, and pads as quietly as he can to the cave entrance, where he can see the stars.</p><p>He has no idea how this is going to go, really. He knows how to be a student, brash and flamboyant and devoted to his craft; he knows how to be a ruined omega, self-effacing and desperately eager to please; he knows how to be a <em>pack</em> omega, enfolded in the warmth of the Wolves’ keep and their unquestioning support. But he isn’t quite sure how to be a companion on the Path. He’s a <em>claimed</em> omega - the way he’s soaked in his alphas’ scent proves that, if the medallion about his throat doesn’t, even if he <em>will</em> have to wait for next winter’s heat to gain his mating marks - but being a witchers’ omega has very little in common with being the mated houseomega or trophy omega of a human alpha. He has a lute and a dagger and the training to use both - his alphas do not expect him to defer, to cower, to present - and he’s not quite sure how that’s going to work in human society. Gardis and Clovis can get away with being utterly astonishing, because they’re <em>witchers</em>; no one expects them to behave like humans. But Jaskier is not a witcher, and there <em>will</em> be certain expectations placed on him, even if his alphas don’t hold with such things.</p><p>Warm arms wrap around him, and a chin rests on his shoulder. Jaskier hadn’t even realized he was shivering until the shudders begin to fade, heat soaking into him from the witcher curled around him. “You look deep in thought, buttercup,” Lambert murmurs. “What’s eating you?”</p><p>“Just wondering how...how this will work,” Jaskier admits, leaning back against Lambert’s warm strength. Lambert nuzzles his throat and purrs a little. “How ought I act, out on the Path?”</p><p>“Just as you always do?” Lambert sounds baffled. “That’s what Remus always did.”</p><p>Jaskier sighs. “Remus was a <em>witcher</em>,” he says gently. “I’m not. If I act like Gardis or Clovis do, it will offend people. Even just the fact that I’m wearing a dagger is going to cause some fuss.” Quite possibly a <em>lot</em> of fuss, actually.</p><p>“Umph,” Lambert says. “I would say, let ‘em be fucking offended, but it won’t be me as gets hurt if something goes wrong.” He tugs Jaskier a little closer, like he wants to shield him from hypothetical harm. “But it’s the law all through Kaedwen and Redania that an omega can do whatever their alpha says they can, yeah?”</p><p>“Yes,” Jaskier agrees, though usually that law is interpreted the other way: an omega must bear whatever restrictions their alpha chooses to place upon them, without recourse.</p><p>“So we’ll make sure there’s always someone with you,” Lambert says. “One of us, to say you’re allowed to do whatever you please.” He sounds distinctly grumpy. “It’s fucking stupid that we’ve <em>gotta</em> do that, but we will. Fucking Eternal Flame <em>assholes</em>, making everyone think omegas aren’t fucking <em>important</em>.” He trails off into little growly noises, muffled against Jaskier’s blanket-covered shoulder. Jaskier watches the clouds drift across the stars for a few minutes. Having an alpha always with him would have <em>terrified</em> him not five months ago; now, honestly, it sounds downright <em>comforting</em>.</p><p>“Is there anything you want to do?” Lambert asks after a while. “Long as it isn’t going hunting with us - fuck if we’re ever going to let you anywhere near a monster.”</p><p>“I have no interest in going hunting,” Jaskier reassures him, patting one of Lambert’s arms where it’s wrapped around his waist. “I...suppose I wouldn’t mind seeing if I could perform, now and again.”</p><p>“Perform?”</p><p>“As a bard.” Jaskier bites his lip. Omegas <em>don’t</em> perform in public, usually - even while he was at Oxenfurt, while he’d <em>dreamed</em> of someday being a traveling bard, he’d known that it was a fever dream, an utter impossibility. If he’d been very lucky, the alpha his parents chose for him would have allowed him to play for their pups. And, of course, he had not been lucky...or perhaps, given the alphas he <em>has</em> ended up claimed by, he had been far luckier than he could have imagined.</p><p>Lambert hums. “Don’t see why not,” he says at last. “Certainly can’t hurt to try.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Jaskier whispers.</p><p>“Nothin’ to thank me for, buttercup,” Lambert says, pressing a kiss to Jaskier’s throat. “We want you happy, you know.”</p><p>Jaskier turns around in the circle of Lambert’s arms, and kisses his alpha as sweetly and thoroughly as he knows how. “I am,” he promises. “With you, I am.”</p><p>“Good,” Eskel rumbles from the nest of bedrolls. “Now come back to bed, hm? I’m cold.”</p><p>Jaskier laughs and obeys, Lambert right behind him, and somehow it’s much easier, now, to curl up between his alphas and slide blissfully to sleep. The cold of the stone floor can’t reach him, not with his alphas to keep him warm.</p><p>*</p><p>The lower half of the Trail still has some snow on it, enough to make the going uncomfortably slick, and Jaskier has rarely been more grateful to see level ground than he is when they finally reach the base of the Blue Mountains and the much wider road which leads into Wolvenburg, the town near the foot of the Trail.</p><p>The people of this town are as comfortable with witchers as any humans Jaskier has ever encountered; he recognizes the old herbwife, Hildy, who waves as they pass through the little market square and calls, “Lambert, you young reprobate, did you poison anyone this winter?”</p><p>Lambert laughs and goes over to kiss her cheek. “Nah, Hildy, but I made an awful nice juniper-berry infused batch of White Gull.”</p><p>“Well, that’s practically sensible,” Hildy laughs. “And who’s your pretty friend?”</p><p>Lambert beckons Jaskier over. Jaskier approaches a little warily - betas can be quite nasty, though not usually as aggressively <em>physical</em> as alphas are - and Hildy smiles at him, face wrinkled up like a winter apple. “This’s Jaskier, our pack’s omega,” Lambert says proudly.</p><p>Jaskier bows, as he would to a noble lady in her own house, and old Hildy laughs in delight. “Oh, you’re a polite young thing, aren’t you?” she chortles. “Is this mischief-maker treating you right?”</p><p>“He is, Mistress Hildy,” Jaskier says, smiling down at her. “They all are.”</p><p>“Good!” she says. “Here, a gift for my friend’s new mate.” She presses something into his hand. Jaskier looks down to see a little embroidered pillow, stuffed with - he raises it to his nose and sniffs - dried lavender.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says, tucking it away in his belt pouch carefully. “You’re very kind.”</p><p>“Eh, these boys need someone to look after them,” Hildy says, and grins when Lambert makes indignant noises. “You let me know if this one gets to be too much of a handful, my lad; my husband may have died these ten winters back, but I still remember all my old tricks!”</p><p>Jaskier can feel his ears heating. “Thank you,” he says again, a little awkwardly. “But truly, they’ve been nothing but kind to me.”</p><p>“Good,” she says, nodding sharply, and reaches up to pat Lambert on the cheek again. “Now get your omega into a nice warm inn, shoo, shoo!”</p><p>Lambert laughs and herds Jaskier away to where Eskel and Geralt are waiting with the horses, both of them clearly suppressing laughter.</p><p>“Well, now you have the approval of the most important person in Lambert’s life,” Eskel teases. Lambert growls at him, not very seriously, and Geralt huffs a laugh.</p><p>No one in this town really seems to bat an eye at the dagger on Jaskier’s hip or the lute on his back, but this town sees witchers regularly - presumably they’re used to Gardis and Clovis, who are of course as heavily armed as the rest of the witchers are, and so a single dagger, even on a mere human, isn’t enough to raise eyebrows. And the tavern-keeper looks Jaskier up and down, eyes the lute, and says, “So, are you any good with that?”</p><p>Jaskier swallows hard and puts his shoulders back and meets the beta’s eyes squarely. “I’m <em>very</em> good.”</p><p>“Been a while since we had a bard through here,” the tavern-keeper says. “If you’ll play tonight, and you’re as good as you say, your dinners are all on the house.”</p><p>“Deal,” Jaskier says, and the tavern-keeper actually holds out a hand for him to shake, as though they are equals. As though he doesn’t notice Jaskier is an omega. Jaskier shakes it firmly.</p><p>He plays for a steadily growing crowd that night - apparently news that there’s a musician spreads pretty quickly, and people keep trickling in through the door and then <em>staying</em>, watching Jaskier avidly as he paces back and forth on the hearth, wringing ballads and drinking songs and cheerful ditties from the lute and grinning with the heady feeling of being applauded at the end of each song. His alphas are seated at the nearest table, watching him with wide, hungry, approving smiles - well, Eskel and Lambert are grinning, Geralt is just looking quietly and thoroughly contented.</p><p>When he finally starts to flag, late in the evening, Jaskier bows to his audience and apologizes for needing rest, and is rewarded with not just a wave of applause and happy cheering, but a handful of <em>coins</em>, coppers and even a few silver pieces clattering onto the hearth at his feet. He gathers the money up as the patrons finish their drinks and go wandering out of the tavern, some of them singing snatches of the songs he’s sung, all of them in fine good humor, and goes to join his alphas at their table.</p><p>Lambert tousles his hair and grins; Eskel pushes a plate of bread and venison and stewed apples over in front of him; Geralt wraps an arm around his waist and nestles his head against Jaskier’s shoulder, purring so softly that Jaskier feels it instead of hearing it. And the tavern-keeper comes bustling over as Jaskier finishes clearing his plate and says, “Breakfast’s on the house, too, lad, and if you’d care to play when you come back through this fall, I’ll be honored to have you.”</p><p>“Ah - thank you,” Jaskier says, wide-eyed.</p><p>“Thank <em>you</em>,” the tavern-keeper says, beaming. “I made twice what I normally would tonight, and that’s on you, lad! You’ve a treasure there, witchers.”</p><p>“We know,” Eskel says, sounding pleased and proud.</p><p>Once they make it up to their room, Jaskier offers the handful of coins to Eskel. All three of his alphas go still, and then Eskel reaches out and closes Jaskier’s hand gently around the money. “That’s <em>yours</em>, Jaskier.”</p><p>“You earned it, you keep it,” Lambert agrees.</p><p>“But,” Jaskier says, eyes wide. Even mated omegas don’t generally get to <em>keep</em> the money they earn, even if they’re allowed to work - usually at making and selling handicrafts, since that doesn’t involve leaving the house. The money goes to their alphas, always. Good alphas, so Jaskier has heard, will use that money to buy nice things <em>for</em> their omegas, but that’s as far as that goes.</p><p>“It’s yours,” Geralt says, solid as if the words are set in stone. “What you earn, you keep.”</p><p>Jaskier swallows. “I’m...I’m part of the pack, though,” he says. “I know you all pool your earnings. Shouldn’t this be part of that?”</p><p>His alphas glance at each other, and then Lambert shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “You got us fed, dinner and breakfast both. Might be you’ll do that again, out on the Path. The <em>coin</em> is yours.”</p><p>Jaskier looks down at the handful of coins - maybe enough for a secondhand doublet, or some half-decent lute strings, or two or three good meals at <em>nice</em> taverns. More money than he’s had since Oxenfurt. Money that’s <em>his</em>, not an allowance from his parents or his alphas, but that he earned himself.</p><p>Slowly, he tucks it away in the belt-pouch with the little lavender sachet. “Thank you.”</p><p>“Nothing to thank us for, buttercup,” Lambert says. “Come to bed; I’m fuckin’ exhausted.”</p><p>“Same,” Eskel agrees, and Jaskier sets his lute aside very carefully and kicks off his boots and collapses into the bed in the middle of his alphas, Eskel on one side and Lambert on the other and Geralt curled around Lambert with his hand heavy and warm on Jaskier’s chest. Everything smells like warm-hearth-and-safety, and Jaskier snuggles down happily, body still thrumming with the joy of performing - of being applauded and cheered and <em>praised</em> - and decides that if this is life on the Path, he’s going to enjoy it a very great deal.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Naturally, it isn’t all that easy. Jaskier didn’t really expect it to be. They ride for two days before they reach the next town, and that’s familiar enough; Jaskier remembers the trip <em>to</em> Kaer Morhen, after all. Hot breakfast, ride all morning, cold luncheon, ride into the late afternoon, make camp, weapons drills, hot dinner (of hardtack and soup - the hardtack is just as bland as Vesemir promised, but the apple slices do help a bit), collapse into a nest of bedrolls and purring alphas, repeat. It is a <em>bit</em> of a shock to the system, camping out in the cold: he’s had three months to get used to a bed, and Vesemir’s good cooking, and being able to curl up next to a warm hearth in a vast and amazingly well-stocked library and read or compose to his heart’s content, so riding pillion behind one of his alphas as they head west across early-spring Kaedwen is quite a change. Still, he’s always got a nice warm alpha to lean against - and all of them are insistent that he share their cloaks when he rides with them - and he’s in <em>much</em> better condition than he was four months ago, and Eskel’s camp cooking isn’t actually <em>bad</em>, just a bit repetitive, which given the lack of fresh vegetables available at the moment, can’t really be blamed on Eskel. And Jaskier is <em>much</em> more useful to his alphas now. He’s learned sewing from Aubry and cooking from Vesemir and how to care for leather from Lambert and how to tend a horse from Geralt, and he’s strong enough to gather firewood or help dig a latrine pit without any trouble, so he takes on a fair share of the camp chores - not as much as his alphas do, because he’s only human, but enough that he doesn’t feel like a burden.</p><p>The next town they reach is rather larger than Wolvenburg: it has several streets rather than just one, and four inns to choose from. It also has three contracts pinned to the notice board in the main square, and Jaskier holds the horses’ reins while his alphas examine all three.</p><p>“Pack of ghouls,” Eskel says, tapping a finger against one contract. Geralt hums and nods.</p><p>“Drowners, ugh,” Lambert adds, making a rude gesture at one of the other notices.</p><p>“This one, though...I’m thinking fleder?” Eskel frowns.</p><p>“Some sorta vampire, yeah,” Lambert agrees. “Ick. Still, should pay well.”</p><p>“True,” Eskel agrees. He tugs all three contracts off the notice board, and they head for the alderman’s house. Geralt drops back to help with the horses, giving Jaskier a very small smile - small enough that Jaskier doesn’t think anyone else would even recognize it as such.</p><p>“Doing alright?” he asks, very softly.</p><p>Jaskier nods. There are a fair number of people out and about - mostly betas, a few alphas - and several of them have given him curious looks, but none of them have approached him, and the one alpha who got close enough to smell him at all took one sniff and backed away <em>quickly</em>, which was immensely reassuring.</p><p>The alderman is a whip-thin alpha with a bitter scent and a glint in his eye that Jaskier doesn’t like at <em>all</em>, but he dickers politely enough with Eskel and Lambert, and agrees to a price for the contracts which the witchers appear to think is fair. Geralt leaves the horses with the rest of them in the main square and goes to do a quick circuit of the town, and when he returns he leads them to the smallest of the four inns, which looks a bit shabby from the outside but is remarkably clean within. The innkeeper is a middle-aged beta woman, who eyes them dubiously but agrees to rent them a room all the same.</p><p>Jaskier takes a deep breath as Lambert accepts the room key, and steps forward. “I am a bard,” he says, the first time he’s claimed that title. “Will you trade an evening’s entertainment for dinner for the four of us?”</p><p>The innkeeper gives him a <em>very</em> skeptical look. “A bard,” she says, and eyes Jaskier’s alphas. “Play me something, then.”</p><p>Jaskier grins despite his nerves, and swings his lute off his back, uncasing it and tuning it quickly. “What would you like to hear, madam?”</p><p>“<em>Barley Mow</em>,” the innkeeper says, a note of challenge in her voice.</p><p>“Done,” Jaskier says, and launches into the tune. His alphas step back to lean against the wall, looking quietly smug (Geralt) or quietly pleased (Eskel) or <em>very</em> smug (Lambert) as their inclinations take them.</p><p>By the time he’s finished the song, the few patrons already having a drink are clapping along, and the innkeeper is tapping her foot and nodding in time to the beat, a smile creasing her weathered cheeks. “You <em>are</em> good,” she says, and Jaskier can’t blame her for her surprise. “You give me...two hours’ performance, and meals are on the house tonight.”</p><p>“Done,” Jaskier says again, and holds out a hand to shake. She does so, though she glances warily at his alphas out of the corner of her eye. Again, Jaskier can’t blame her.</p><p>He sings that night, while Geralt and Eskel go out to investigate the drowner contract, and the shabby little inn’s common room fills up with people drinking quite a lot of the innkeeper’s surprisingly good ale and clapping along with Jaskier’s tunes. Lambert sits off to one side, grinning and tapping his foot to the beat and baring his teeth in silent warning to anyone who dares to start edging Jaskier’s way. It’s a very good night, and it earns Jaskier and his alphas the best dinner the innkeeper can serve them, and a promise of breakfast the next morning...and a hatful of copper coins, which the innkeeper agrees to change for silver, since she can always use small change.</p><p>Jaskier plays again the next two nights, to large and cheerful crowds. The second night, Geralt guards him, a silent white-haired shadow seated at a tiny corner table who only moves enough for his eyes and fangs to catch the light; the third night, it’s Eskel beside him, and Jaskier sees him tapping idly at the lute’s case where it lies on the table and starts wondering if maybe Eskel would like to learn to play a tabor or a timbrel or something of that sort.</p><p>None of the audience members dare to approach Jaskier, not with his witchers watching, and he earns food for his pack <em>and</em> a reduced rate for their room, and goes to bed each night practically glowing with triumph. It feels damn good to know that he has made a difference - that though he cannot help kill monsters as Remus did, he can still help support their pack in his own way.</p><p>They leave on the morning of the fourth day, purses full with the bounties from eight ghouls, half a dozen drowners, and a truly hideous thing that’s apparently called a garkain - and Jaskier’s own purse full, too, from the coins the inn’s patrons tossed into his lute case while he played. All of it is his, his alphas insist - every last clipped copper.</p><p>He’s got no idea what he’s going to spend it on, but just <em>having</em> money of his own is an astonishing comfort.</p><p>*</p><p>Three towns along, they reach an actual <em>city</em>: Rakverelin, where the Toina and Buina rivers meet. It’s a walled city, with a keep in the center rising above the slate roofs, and Jaskier can’t help hunching down behind Eskel, trying to make himself as close to invisible as possible, as they approach. <em>Towns</em> aren’t so bad, now; between the fact that he smells very <em>thoroughly</em> claimed and the constant presence of at least one of his alphas, no one has dared to give him any trouble. It helps that there aren’t usually more than a dozen alphas in a small town. But there are so <em>many</em> people in a city like this - so many <em>alphas</em>. And in a city, some of those alphas will be wealthy, or noble - the sort of people who do not like to be told <em>no</em>.</p><p>Eskel pats his hand gently. “Deep breaths,” he murmurs. “Don’t panic. We’ve got you.”</p><p>Jaskier nods, but it’s hard not to worry. It gets easier when, to his surprise, instead of going through the city gates, Geralt turns south and leads the way around the walls.</p><p>On the eastern side of the city is a broad plain holding what must be one of the larger horse-markets in Kaedwen. There must be half a hundred different tents, each with a fenced-off area behind it for the horses, and after a minute of blank staring, Jaskier realizes there’s an order to the whole chaotic mess. On the side nearest them, the horses look to be cart- or plow-horses, heavy placid animals with enormous hooves. Further away, he can see what look to be palfreys, and past them, actual <em>destriers</em>, though there are not many of those.</p><p>“Eskel, what -” he hisses.</p><p>“Well, we all <em>like</em> riding with you, sweetling,” Eskel replies, “but you really do need your own horse.”</p><p>Jaskier is struck absolutely dumb. A lute, a dagger, and now a <em>horse</em>? Soon no one will be able to tell he <em>is</em> an omega unless they get close enough to smell him!</p><p>That’s...not necessarily a bad thing, though.</p><p>Geralt leads the way to a tent about halfway along the row of palfrey traders. The merchant, a stocky beta woman, comes out of her tent with a grin.</p><p>“Hey now, Wolves! Wasn’t expecting to see you this year!”</p><p>Geralt swings down from Roach and gives the woman a polite nod. “Got a new packmate,” he says. “Need a horse for him.”</p><p>Eskel nudges Jaskier gently with an elbow. “That’s you; g’wan down,” he murmurs.</p><p>Jaskier swallows hard and swings down off of Scorpion. Geralt holds out a hand, and Jaskier tucks himself against Geralt’s side, trying not to look as nervous as he is. The woman looks him up and down. “You’re not Remus,” she observes after a moment.</p><p>“Died more’n a year back,” Lambert says gruffly.</p><p>“Ah, my condolences,” the woman says, and holds out a hand to Jaskier. “I’m Mari.”</p><p>Jaskier takes her hand a little hesitantly. “Jaskier.”</p><p>“A pleasure,” Mari says. “Now, you’ll want a taller horse, I’m guessing, tall as <em>you</em> are. Stallion, mare, or gelding?”</p><p>“Ah,” Jaskier says, and gives Geralt a pleading look. He’s never actually <em>had</em> a horse of his own - even when he was still a viscount, he used the horses from his parents’ stables, but never <em>owned</em> one, and he’s not entirely sure what would work best.</p><p>“Mare or gelding,” Geralt says firmly. “Good temper and plenty of endurance. Don’t much care what it looks like.”</p><p>Mari hums and taps a finger against her chin. “Might have something,” she says at last, and whistles. A gangly beta boy of maybe thirteen comes trotting over to the fence beside the tent. “Bring up the grey gelding, would you, Jakob?”</p><p>“Sure thing, Mama,” the boy says, and goes haring off back into the little herd of horses, emerging a few minutes later leading a tall dapple-grey gelding.</p><p>Geralt hums, kisses Jaskier’s temple, and hands Jaskier Roach’s reins before vaulting the fence without any apparent effort and giving the grey a very thorough inspection, including hopping up onto the horse’s bare back and doing a few quick circuits of the fenced area to test its gaits.</p><p>“Hm,” he concludes at last, sliding down again. “Jaskier, come here.”</p><p>Eskel takes Roach’s reins. Mari hands Jaskier a chunk of carrot with a wink and a grin. Jaskier swallows hard, clambers over the fence much less gracefully than Geralt did, and approaches the grey carefully, carrot held out in a flat hand the way the stablemaster taught him many years ago. The grey takes the carrot very gently, and then whuffles thoughtfully at Jaskier’s tunic. Jaskier strokes its velvet-soft nose, murmuring compliments under his breath.</p><p>“Hm,” Geralt says, sounding very pleased. “He’ll do.”</p><p>“Lovely,” Mari says. “Let’s dicker.”</p><p>Jaskier tries not to listen as Lambert takes over - usually, listening to Lambert bartering is a joy, because Lambert is a master of the art, but he can’t quite make himself comfortable hearing his alphas spend so <em>much</em> money on him. A horse isn’t cheap, and this is a <em>good</em> horse, sturdy and not too old, well-trained and healthy.</p><p>Far better to spend the time acquainting himself properly with the horse. Geralt leans against the fence and watches, looking very pleased, as Jaskier discovers that the horse likes to be given scritches along the line of its mane. The gangly beta boy is also watching, inching closer with a wary eye on Geralt as he does. Jaskier takes a deep breath and decides to see if the lad is as friendly as his mother.</p><p>“Does he have a name?”</p><p>The boy - Jakob, if Jaskier recalls correctly - startles a little. “Oh! No, not yet. What will you name him?”</p><p>Jaskier hums, stroking a hand over one of the grey’s ears. “What do you think of Pegasus?”</p><p>“That’s a pretty name,” Jakob says, grinning. “I like it.”</p><p>“Pegasus it is, then,” Jaskier says.</p><p>Jakob jitters from one foot to another, eyeing Geralt warily, and then whispers, “Do you really have <em>three</em> alphas?”</p><p>“Yes,” Jaskier says, smiling.</p><p>“How does that <em>work</em>?” Jakob hisses. “Alphas are always so - so - <em>grabby</em>!”</p><p>Jaskier grins wider. “Oh, they’re fairly possessive, but they’re a pack, you see. They share among themselves without any trouble. Weird, isn’t it?”</p><p>Jakob nods, eyes wide. “Is that a <em>witcher</em> thing?”</p><p>Jaskier opens his mouth to agree and hesitates. “You know,” he says slowly, “I’m not sure. It might just be that the witchers remember things we humans have forgotten.”</p><p>Jakob frowns. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Well, can you smell how all their scents match?” Jaskier asks. Jakob sniffs the air and nods slowly. “They’re a pack <em>because</em> they match, and they picked me because I fit. I think if you tried to make just any group a pack, it wouldn’t work, but if the scents match, it all sort of...fits.”</p><p>“Huh,” Jakob says, looking very thoughtful. “Does that work for betas, too?”</p><p>“I think so,” Jaskier says. “There’s another pack that has two betas, and their scents match, too: melting ice and lanolin to their omega's new growth.”</p><p>“<em>Huh</em>,” Jakob says.</p><p>Behind them, Lambert says, “Done!”</p><p>Mari laughs. “You’re an ass,” she says, but she sounds pleased nonetheless. “Pleasure doing business with you as always.”</p><p>And just like that, Jaskier has a <em>horse</em>.</p><p>*</p><p>Having a horse of his own has an interesting effect that Jaskier hadn’t quite dared to expect: people <em>do</em> assume he’s a beta, at least until they’re actually close enough to smell him. It’s a reasonable assumption to make, really: he’s well-dressed and wears a dagger at his belt, his hair is short and tidy instead of the long loose locks or tight braids omegas usually have, his horse carries a lute and a pair of sturdy saddlebags of his clothing and sundries, and he is taller and visibly stronger than most omegas ever are. Also, his alphas have such strong scents that no one can smell him until they’re nearly beside him.</p><p>Alphas don’t leer at him when he passes, now, because they don’t assume he’s an omega. And even when they <em>do</em> get a decent whiff of his scent, in taverns or town squares, they back away swiftly, dismayed and confused by the layered scents of <em>three</em> alphas overlaying Jaskier’s own.</p><p>Being less worried about strange alphas means Jaskier is less hesitant about asking tavernkeepers if he can play in exchange for meals, and though the tavernkeepers usually glance over at whichever of Jaskier’s alphas is accompanying him, to see if this is <em>allowed</em>, most of them do end up agreeing, if with a certain wariness. That wariness fades quickly, though, because Jaskier is <em>good</em>. He’s always known he could be. His music draws people in and keeps them drinking and laughing and singing along, and every night that he gets to play, he goes back to the rooms they’ve rented with a heavy little pouch of silver and copper. He couldn’t <em>live</em> off what he’s making - not easily, at any rate - but it’s still an astonishing amount of money for an omega to have.</p><p>He honestly has no idea what to do with it. His alphas refuse to let him pay for supplies, and he’s already earning them free meals - and often a significant discount on their room - whenever they stop at an inn, so he <em>is</em> contributing - quite usefully, in fact; he’s rather proud of that.</p><p>It’s Lambert who gives him his first idea. They’re passing through a smallish town - not planning to stay the night - and there’s a young woman busking in the main square. “Flashy outfit,” Lambert observes idly, and Jaskier’s eyes go wide.</p><p>He used to love wearing bright colors, fancy silk and elegant embroidery. He’d almost forgotten. Six years of wearing whatever rags his alphas deigned to toss his way had nearly beaten the vanity out of him, and while the clothes his witchers have given him are both sturdy and comfortable, they’re also fairly plain.</p><p>The next time they stop in a decent-sized town, Jaskier asks Eskel to bring him to a used-clothing shop. Of all his alphas, Eskel is the most likely to wear colors - he likes a nice deep red especially - and he’s the least likely to scare the shopkeeper witless or say rude things for the fun of it. Eskel seems delighted by the request, and two very pleasant hours later, Jaskier has new doublets in green and vivid blue and a lovely silvery grey that makes his eyes look even bluer, if Eskel’s compliments are to be believed, and the proper sort of soft cotton chemises to go under them, a really delightful hat, and a beautiful and incredibly flashy red outfit with an embroidery pattern that looks a little bit like a dragon’s scales. They all need to be laundered and most of them need mending, but Jaskier is delighted all the same.</p><p>He is also delighted by the looks in his alphas’ eyes, a few days later, when he puts on one of his new doublets for the first time and asks them how he looks. Geralt’s eyes go huge, like a cat’s when it sees a bird; Eskel bites his lip and growls, just a little; and Lambert comes prowling over, licking his lips, and kisses Jaskier half-senseless.</p><p>“You look good,” he says as he pulls away. “<em>Really</em> fucking good.”</p><p>“So I’d gathered,” Jaskier says, trying to reclaim his scattered wits. They go flying right away again when Geralt and Eskel crowd in on either side of him, taking turns leaning in to kiss him. Jaskier resolves to buy several more colorful doublets.</p><p>*</p><p>It’s easier to convince tavernkeepers that he really is a bard, now that he’s dressed like one, and as he grows more confident and more accustomed to performing, the amount of money that’s tossed at his feet becomes ever more substantial, and he manages to negotiate for room and board for himself and his pack almost every night they’re in a town. By the time they’ve reached the Kestrel Mountains, all the way across Kaedwen from Kaer Morhen, Jaskier has acquired another jaunty hat and several more colorful outfits and a new saddle and saddlebags for Pegasus, and successfully talked his witchers into at least allowing him to pay for <em>his</em> horse’s upkeep, even if they won’t let him spend his money on <em>theirs</em>.</p><p>Even more remarkable, he’s started to gain just a little bit of a reputation.</p><p>The first time they reach a tavern and the beta behind the bar frowns at Jaskier, then at Eskel looming behind him, and says, “Huh - are you the witchers’ bard, then?” Jaskier nearly faints with shock. He manages to recover well enough, though, pressing a hand over the medallion that marks him as one of the Wolves’ pack to anchor himself, and agrees that yes, he’s the witchers’ bard, and would the tavernkeeper like to have him play tonight? Which the tavernkeeper <em>would</em>, and Jaskier plays his set in a bit of a daze.</p><p>The witchers’ bard. Not <em>the omega bard</em> or even <em>the witchers’ omega</em>, but <em>the witchers’ bard</em>.</p><p>Lambert flops atop him that evening, on the rather musty mattress in the tavern’s only private room, and snuffles at his throat. “You’ve smelt odd all evening, buttercup.”</p><p>“The witchers’ bard,” Jaskier says quietly.</p><p>“Well, you are,” Eskel says, settling beside Jaskier and pressing a gentle kiss to his temple. “It’s not as though any other pack of witchers has a bard.”</p><p>Jaskier takes a deep breath. “I’ve been singing other people’s songs,” he says, closing his eyes - he can’t bear to see their expressions, if they don’t like this idea. “Would - you know I’ve been writing songs about <em>you</em>. About your hunts. Would - would you allow me to sing those?”</p><p>There’s a long silence. Jaskier waits, barely breathing. Finally Geralt says, very quietly, “Won’t be popular. People don’t like witchers.”</p><p>Jaskier’s eyes pop open, and he stares up at Geralt. “That’s <em>why</em> I want to sing them. People fear what they don’t understand. If I can - can make people see you like <em>I</em> do -”</p><p>Lambert chuckles softly. “Maybe not exactly like you do, buttercup.”</p><p>“Well, alright, no, but -” Jaskier fumbles for words. “You’re not monsters,” he says at last, quiet and firm. “You’re the least monstrous people I’ve ever met. I want to make everyone else see that, too.”</p><p>Geralt hums. Eskel is frowning, not in anger but in thought. Lambert worries gently at Jaskier’s throat, not really a bite or a kiss, just something to do while he considers. Finally Geralt says, “You can try.”</p><p>Eskel nods. “But if people start reacting badly - you can’t endanger yourself for this, Jaskier. We’ve gotten by just fine this long.”</p><p>“You <em>haven’t</em> though!” Jaskier protests. “Gardis - Gardis told me about the pogrom. About what thinking you were monsters <em>did</em> to you - about how many were lost. I can’t make that not have happened, but I could - I could maybe help make it not happen again.”</p><p>“You can try,” Eskel says, very reluctantly. “But people don’t stop being afraid that easily.”</p><p>“We’ll see,” Jaskier says.</p><p>“Guess we will,” Lambert agrees.</p><p>The next town they come to, Jaskier plays his usual fare, bouncy drinking songs and sappy love ballads and a hymn to Melitele that someone requests specifically, but right in the middle of his set, he plays <em>The Bruxa Hunt</em>. It’s entirely his own composition, music and lyrics both, and it’s based on what Lambert and Eskel have told him about that very first hunt, when Jaskier was left behind with a brand-new dagger and his heart in his throat. The song talks about the long stalk through the dark forest at midnight, the horde of bruxae leaping from the trees, the valiant efforts of the three warriors, guarding each other’s backs and striking with silver swords at their vicious enemies. It’s good enough that Jaskier would not have been ashamed to turn it in to old, picky Professor Hissel, who was notorious for never giving <em>anyone</em> good marks.</p><p>It’s good enough that people clap along, and even chime in on the chorus after the first rendition.</p><p>Jaskier follows it with an old, popular drinking song, and doesn’t dare play any of his other works that night, but - people <em>liked</em> it!</p><p>And his <em>Wolves</em> liked it, he learns later that night, as they all curl around him and start purring in contentment. It’s Geralt, to Jaskier’s surprise, who speaks first. “The bit about Eskel’s Quen,” he says quietly. “That was good.”</p><p>Jaskier wriggles a little in happiness. <em>His golden shield / strong as stone / to keep his brothers safe from harm / it would not break / for any foe / it would not falter in the storm</em>. Eskel puts a hand over his own face and makes a little grumbly noise of embarrassment before rallying.</p><p>“I liked the bit with Lambert,” Eskel says, and actually hums a snatch of the tune. Lambert hides his face against Jaskier’s throat. <em>The youngest wolf / as swift as thought / his silver sword a lightning flash / whirled through the night / around his pack / and smote the bruxae in his path.</em></p><p>“Vampires don’t have queens,” Lambert mutters. “But that was a good bit anyhow.” It’s Geralt’s turn to blush and grumble, nuzzling at Lambert’s hair. <em>The white wolf stood / before his pack / and dared the vampire queen to strike / he met her claws / with silver blade / and moonlight triumphed over night</em>.</p><p>“It’s a good song,” Eskel says softly. “And - people <em>did</em> like it.”</p><p>Jaskier beams into the darkness. “I told you they would.”</p><p>“Gloating isn’t nice, buttercup,” Lambert grumbles, and Eskel guffaws, rolling off the bed in a fit of helpless laughter. Jaskier leans over the edge of the bed in worry.</p><p>“<em>Lambert</em>,” Eskel gasps. “Telling you not to <em>gloat</em>. How much shit did you give Geralt when it turned out that thing really was a rusalka, little wolf?”</p><p>“Oh, fuck off,” Lambert mutters. “And I’m not little.”</p><p>Geralt is also laughing, a soft rumble of amusement that shakes the bed. Jaskier grins and settles back down, and Eskel clambers back into the bed and tucks his nose against Jaskier’s throat, and Lambert grumbles until he falls asleep. Jaskier dozes off feeling very, very warm, and not just because there are three witchers curled around him, rendering blankets absolutely superfluous.</p><p>Jaskier sings his new songs in every town after that - one or two in every set, not enough to annoy anyone, just enough to get people used to hearing witchers sung of as heroes - and they’re received, if not with universal raucous acclaim, at least with good humor and cheerful applause and his audiences happily bellowing the choruses. And his pack likes them, which is reason enough to keep singing, no matter what.</p><p>*</p><p>Oxenfurt looks pretty much like Jaskier remembers. Same ivy-covered walls. Same harried students, doublets half-unlaced and hair untidy, rushing along the paths in the quadrangles. Same beta attendants, stern in their dark blue uniforms, stalking along their patrol paths to ensure that no one gets up to anything <em>too</em> scandalous.</p><p>It’s rather jarring to be here with his pack. Witchers don’t fit into any of Jaskier’s memories of the university; they stand out like - well, like wolves among lapdogs, really. It’s sort of laughable, actually, the way some of the alpha students bristle as Jaskier’s packmates stalk along the paths towards the administrative building, and then shrink back as the scents of three alpha Wolves hit them. Jaskier, safely tucked into the middle of the pack, is pretty much invisible despite his best red outfit - no one sensible is going to be paying attention to <em>him</em> when there are wolves in their midst.</p><p>The chancellor’s secretary looks more than a little taken aback when they all come crowding into her office, but one doesn’t become the secretary to a university’s chancellor without being able to deal with all sorts of chaos without breaking under the strain. “Have you got an appointment?” she inquires.</p><p>“Nah,” Lambert drawls, shrugging. “Figured this was the best place to come looking for one of your what-do-you-call-em, alumni, that’s the word.”</p><p>Jaskier bites the inside of his cheek to muffle laughter. Lambert may well be one of the best-educated men he’s ever met - really all of his alphas are surprisingly well-read, but Lambert <em>devours</em> new knowledge - but he does a very good imitation of a bumpkin.</p><p>“May I ask what business you have with one of our honored alumni?” the secretary presses.</p><p>Lambert grins, wide and feral, and Geralt and Eskel both cross their arms over their chests and shift their weight, just a little bit, so they’re looming behind Lambert’s shoulders. “Wanted to give him our compliments in person,” Lambert says. “Valdo Marx, he’s called.”</p><p>“Oh,” the secretary says, and her nose wrinkles. “Master Marx. Yes.” She sounds like she’s tasted something foul. Jaskier’s eyebrows rise. <em>That’s</em> new - six years ago, anyone who spoke of Valdo Marx did so with, if not affection, at least approval. He was a rising star among the students, a talented alpha destined to go far.</p><p>The secretary rises and rifles through a large cabinet behind her desk, pulling out several drawers in swift succession. “Here he is,” she says at last. “The most recent information we have on him is that he was in Cidaris, troubadour to the monarchs there.”</p><p>“Lovely,” Lambert says, smiling with all his teeth. “Our thanks, ma’am.” He sweeps her a low bow, and the witchers start to turn to leave.</p><p>Jaskier steps forward. The secretary’s eyes go wide. He can’t really blame her for not noticing him - he was half-hidden behind his alphas, and three irritable witchers are enough to distract anyone, really. “If you please, ma’am,” he says softly, “could you also tell me where Priscilla has settled, if you know?”</p><p>“Priscilla?” the secretary says, frowning a little.</p><p>“Callonetta on stage,” Jaskier says, because he and Pris had spent a whole evening discussing it once, and she’d sworn up and down she’d use it when the time came.</p><p>“Oh, Callonetta!” the secretary says, and turns to rifle through the cabinet again. “She’s down in Novigrad,” she announces at last.</p><p>“Thank you,” Jaskier says, bowing a little.</p><p>The secretary peers at him. “You’re - do I know you?”</p><p>Jaskier shakes his head. He’s not ready for anyone in Oxenfurt to recognize him - to ask him questions about what has happened in the years since his parents called him back to Lettenhove. “I am Jaskier, the witchers’ bard.”</p><p>“Oh,” the secretary says, nodding a little confusedly, and Jaskier makes his escape.</p><p>At least he knows Pris is alright - is doing well for herself, he hopes. Maybe at some point his witchers’ Path will take them down to Novigrad, and he’ll be able to stop in and see her.</p><p>He wouldn’t have wanted her to see him <em>before</em>, when he was a cringing creature dressed in rags, afraid of his own shadow. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone from Oxenfurt to see him like that. But now - in clothing bought by coin of his own earning, with a lute on his back and a dagger at his hip, with three alphas who love him and who he adores, and who will protect him against anything that dares threaten him - now, he thinks he’d like to see Priscilla again someday, and tell her he is well.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Interlude: Valdo</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A great many alphas do very stupid things when they are nineteen, and foolish, and have never known any true consequences for their actions. It’s an axiom, so well-worn as to be almost too obvious: alphas will be alphas. They challenge each other to duels, or leap off of tall cliffs into the sea, or brag of their martial prowess in the most dangerous taverns in the slums. Some of them die; others are injured. That’s just how young alphas <em>are</em>.</p>
<p>Most of them don’t condemn someone <em>else</em> to death, though. Much less the most horrible death imaginable. And if they do, they don’t usually do it by <em>mistake</em>.</p>
<p>He still isn’t sure if it would have been better or worse if he’d done it on purpose.</p>
<p>He didn’t <em>realize</em>. He didn’t think - he didn’t think it would be that big a deal, honestly. Nobody <em>actually</em> sells their children into slavery based on nothing more than a rumor, after all. And even if they <em>had</em> taken the rumor seriously, they should have demanded that he take Julian as his mate! That would have been the obvious solution! And Julian was clever, had a good turn of phrase, and he himself is maybe not <em>noble</em> but his family has wealth enough - they could have made a good match of it! Julian couldn’t have ever actually <em>performed</em>, of course, but he could have sung Julian’s songs, maybe even allowed Julian to provide accompaniment - from behind a screen, naturally - and it would have been a good life, a decent match, maybe not as good as Julian’s parents expected but good <em>enough</em>.</p>
<p>But Julian’s parents hadn’t even bothered to ask. Had just sold Julian off like - like damaged goods. Sent a note to the deans that Julian wouldn’t be returning, and that was all anyone heard; for months, no one knew what had happened, until little Priscilla went down that way during the spring holiday, pretending to be a wandering troubadour, and learned from the estate’s servants that the lord and lady had sold their son off.</p>
<p>Three silver.</p>
<p>Three silver and a song.</p>
<p>That’s what Julian’s life was worth.</p>
<p>If Julian just hadn’t been so damn <em>proud</em> - he had to know he was never going to be allowed to perform, never going to be a real bard. Wasn’t it better that someone should sing that song who could actually <em>use</em> it? Could go out into the world and let it be truly <em>heard</em>? If he only hadn’t been so damn proud as to insist that it was <em>his</em> - to have <em>proof</em>, proof that the professors couldn’t ignore even if it was an omega’s word against an alpha’s -</p>
<p>If he’d just let it <em>go</em>, the way any other omega would have -</p>
<p>But he hadn’t.</p>
<p>And Valdo was young, and stupid, and angry, and didn’t really think Julian’s parents would ever go so far.</p>
<p>And now Julian is dead, and all his songs with him - dead as horribly as Valdo can imagine dying - and it’s Valdo’s fault.</p>
<p>He flinches every time he sees a ruined omega, now, wondering if what got them ruined was something as fucking stupid as a rumor and a song. Wondering how many of them aren’t ruined at all, or weren’t when they were sold. He can’t help imagining Julian in their places, either - Julian, cringing, all that irritating bright cheerfulness turned to servile misery. Julian, all his songs long since beaten out of him, begging uselessly for mercy. Julian <em>dead</em>, his body battered into something not even recognizable as human, left in the street for the rag-and-bone men to take away.</p>
<p>Dead for a rumor and a song.</p>
<p>Valdo made it through Oxenfurt somehow, though none of the omega students would get within ten feet of him, and most of the betas gave him a wide berth, too. He can’t blame them. He’s got a good position here in Cidaris, thanks in large part to his father’s influence; the king and queen seem pleased by the paeans to their wisdom and general benevolence that he writes without any particular difficulty, bland lifeless things as predictable as sunrise without any artistry to them at all, and he coordinates the other court musicians to play for balls and court occasions, and to provide pleasant background music during feasts. The rest of the time he’s allowed to do as he pleases.</p>
<p>He <em>should</em> be writing music, the sort of long complicated tricky pieces he used to love to compose, music for people with <em>taste</em>.</p>
<p>But he can’t. Every time he puts his pen to paper and tries to imagine what such a tune would sound like, he thinks of <em>that</em> song. Julian’s song.</p>
<p>Julian will write no more songs. Why then should his murderer?</p>
<p>So Valdo spends his time in this shitty little tavern, far from the palace and its amusements. No one here knows who he is, or cares; all that matters is that his coin is good. The ale here isn’t terrible, and it <em>is</em> strong.</p>
<p>Valdo’s gotten good at not looking drunk, even when he’s three sheets to the wind.</p>
<p>And maybe he’s sort of hoping that one day, as he walks back up to the palace, some intrepid thief or other will put a knife in his back and leave him bleeding out on the filthy cobblestones. It seems only fair, somehow. He’s a murderer; to be murdered, then, is justice, is it not?</p>
<p>It’s a late summer night seven years after Julian’s death, and Valdo is four pints in and not planning to stop drinking for a while, when Julian slides into the seat across the rickety little table from him.</p>
<p>Valdo blinks at the apparition. Julian is wearing a bright red doublet and trousers, a flashy outfit Valdo doesn’t remember him having, with a strange sort of silver pendant around his throat - but it’s just the sort of thing Julian always liked, loud and attention-grabbing, far too flamboyant for a proper omega. He looks, through the vague haze of alcohol, as young and vibrant as he did seven years ago, in Oxenfurt’s main quad.</p>
<p>“Valdo Marx,” he says, voice as musical as ever.</p>
<p>“You’re dead,” Valdo says, staring in wonder and terror at the ghost. “I killed you.”</p>
<p>Julian raises an eyebrow. “You did?”</p>
<p>“I said -” Valdo stammers. “And then your, your parents -” It’s suddenly <em>vitally</em> important that the ghost understand. “I didn’t think they’d <em>do</em> that, I <em>didn’t</em>, I didn’t mean to get you killed, I swear it.”</p>
<p>Julian props his chin on a fist, leaning his elbow on the rickety table and giving Valdo a sardonic look. “And what <em>did</em> you think my so-loving parents would do with a ruined son?”</p>
<p>“I - I thought they’d marry us off at swordpoint, if they even <em>bothered</em> to believe the rumor,” Valdo admits. “Everyone at Oxenfurt knew you were always within sight of one of the attendants - it was a <em>stupid</em> rumor, it would have died down in another month, no one with any sense believed it -”</p>
<p>“Ah, but it was convincing enough that the deans wrote to my parents,” Julian says, smiling mirthlessly. “Wasn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Valdo sags, pinned by those bright blue eyes. “I - I looked for you. I <em>did</em>. I checked every auction I could get to - I would have bought you, I would have <em>kept</em> you, I promise, I <em>looked</em>, I tried -”</p>
<p>“Did you now,” Julian says. It’s not really a question.</p>
<p>“You know,” says another voice, one Valdo does not recognize, “I actually think he’s telling the truth, buttercup.”</p>
<p>Valdo looks up, and discovers that the entire rest of the tavern is empty, every other patron having cleared out - and the reasons are standing around the little table, arms crossed over their chests. Witchers. <em>Three</em> witchers, and now that he’s paying attention, Valdo can smell them even through the fug of this shitty tavern’s stench. Three <em>alpha</em> witchers.</p>
<p>They’re stationed around the table, far enough apart that Valdo can’t see all of them at once. One of them is pale as ice, his eyes like hammered gold, flat and unreadable. One has scars all down the side of his face that make him look as monstrous as the creatures he hunts, and his crooked snarl bares alpha fangs as sharp as daggers. The third, the one directly behind Julian, has a smirk that chills Valdo to the bone. That’s the one who spoke.</p>
<p>Stone-cold sober and in the best shape of his life, Valdo could never hope to best even a single witcher. <em>Three</em> of them -</p>
<p>He keeps his hands visible and makes no sudden movements.</p>
<p>“I didn’t die,” Julian says quietly, and Valdo gapes. “Oh, I’m sure my parents meant me to -”</p>
<p>“The fucking monsters,” the smirking witcher puts in, voice a low and dangerous growl.</p>
<p>Julian chuckles softly, like having a furious witcher behind him is amusing. “And I wanted to, a time or two. Or twenty. You know I wasn’t ruined when they sold me.” His voice is light, almost amused, but the words are hard as stone. “Would you like to know what the first alpha I was sold to did?”</p>
<p>Valdo shakes his head, mute with horror, but Julian just smiles, a mirthless, terrible expression, and keeps talking.</p>
<p>“He stripped me down in the main square and had me right there, in front of anyone who cared to watch,” Julian says, soft and implacable. “Fucked me bloody while I screamed for mercy, and laughed when I cried, and told me that my name was ‘Slut’ and I should crawl behind him and thank him for his kindness, since he hadn’t beaten me for insolence.”</p>
<p>Valdo winces. He’s seen such things - has seen other ruined omegas treated just like that. He always turns away, now, but the screams come back to him in dreams.</p>
<p>Julian’s voice is as cool and pointed as a blade of ice. “After that, of course, it got worse.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean to,” Valdo rasps. “I didn’t, I swear, I didn’t <em>know</em> -”</p>
<p>“Shall I tell you what it was like, those six years I spent being bought and sold?” Julian asks. Valdo shakes his head frantically.</p>
<p>“No, please, no -” He doesn’t think he can bear it, the horrible stories Julian can tell, in that soft cruel voice that used to be so joyful.</p>
<p>The smirking witcher snorts. “Fuckin’ pathetic,” he drawls. “Can’t even face up to what he’s done.”</p>
<p>“Pathetic,” Julian agrees. “You know something? I’m just as glad you never found me, Valdo. Even if it cost me six years of hell. Because do you know what happened?”</p>
<p>Valdo shakes his head again. He can’t imagine what Julian might consider worth six years of - of <em>that</em>.</p>
<p>Julian smiles, a broad sweet smile with nothing in it but joy. “Geralt bought me,” he says. “And now -” Julian stands, pushing the chair back, and for the first time Valdo realizes he’s got a lute case on his back and a dagger at his hip. He looks -</p>
<p>He looks strong, and confident, in a way he never did even at Oxenfurt. Like he knows <em>nothing</em> can get to him. The witchers close in around him, like bodyguards or -</p>
<p>Or <em>mates</em>.</p>
<p>Impossible. But Valdo can’t think of any other interpretation of the way the pale one loops an arm around Julian to rest gently on his waist, the smirking one hooks his chin over Julian’s shoulder, the scarred one presses his arm against Julian’s, shoulder to elbow, so close a breath could not pass between them.</p>
<p>“Lambert,” Julian says quietly, “may I have another dagger? One you don’t like very much. You won’t be getting it back.”</p>
<p>The smirking witcher produces a knife with a flourish.</p>
<p>“I came here to kill you,” Julian tells Valdo calmly. “But it looks like you’re chasing your death at the bottom of an ale-mug anyhow. And death would be too easy, really. Six years you owe me - six years of pain you can’t even <em>hear</em> about, you coward.” Valdo flinches. Julian chuckles, a worryingly cold sound.</p>
<p>The knife in his hand flicks out, faster than Valdo would have guessed he could move, and Valdo gapes down at his hand - his left hand - where it lies on the table. The knife has gone entirely through his hand, and into the splintery wood, deep enough that Valdo’s not sure if he can pull it out.</p>
<p>There’s a single long, still moment before the pain hits, and then Valdo makes a high, thin, horrible noise as <em>agony</em> ricochets up his arm. Julian crosses his arms and smiles.</p>
<p>“That won’t kill you,” he says. “Won’t even cripple you, if you’re careful. But you won’t play any music for a while, will you now; and you’ll carry the scar all your days, same as I carry mine.”</p>
<p>Valdo nods, unable to keep from whimpering; the pain just keeps <em>going</em>, and beneath his hand the wood of the table is growing wet with his blood.</p>
<p>Julian turns and walks away, the pale witcher and the scarred one flanking him. The smirking one pauses beside the table, and leans down, eerie slitted yellow eyes bare inches from Valdo’s. “If you even <em>think</em> about taking some sort of fuckin’ vengeance on our buttercup for this,” he says, very quietly, “I will cut your fuckin’ knot off and string you up for a nest of drowners, and you’ll die screaming. Understand?”</p>
<p>Valdo nods frantically. “I understand!”</p>
<p>“Good,” the witcher says, and reaches out to flick the hilt of the knife with one finger. Valdo strangles on a scream as the blade vibrates. “Then let’s both hope I never fuckin’ lay eyes on you again, asshole.”</p>
<p>He leaves, twirling yet another dagger through his fingers as he saunters out, and Valdo sags against the table, staring at his hand and the slowly spreading pool of blood.</p>
<p>Julian is alive. Alive, and mated to three witchers.</p>
<p>If it weren’t for the dagger, Valdo would wonder if his most recent mug of ale had been laced with a hallucinogenic. As it is -</p>
<p>As it is, he has no idea what to do.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Fuck, what a whiny little streak of piss,” Lambert says once they’re a fair ways from the tavern where Jaskier has left Valdo Marx’s hand pinned to a table. “Did you hear him say he woulda <em>kept</em> our buttercup? Like some sort of pet.” He snorts derision. “Good aim with that knife.”</p>
<p>Jaskier grins. “I had a good teacher.”</p>
<p>Geralt hums smugly.</p>
<p>Eskel shakes his head. “If I’d ever needed proof that the common knowledge that alphas are stronger than omegas is so much <em>bullshit</em>, I’ve got it now. He couldn’t have borne a fraction of what you did, Jaskier - he’d have broken instantly.”</p>
<p>Jaskier snorts. “Yeah, he would’ve, wouldn’t he.” He shakes himself a little, like he’s shaking off water - shaking away years upon years of pent-up hatred. He can’t bring himself to waste any more time and energy thinking about Valdo Marx, not when he’s left the alpha a shaking wreck of himself, bleeding and weeping, drunken and useless in the shittiest tavern in Cidaris. Fuck him - or better yet, <em>forget</em> him.</p>
<p>“So,” Lambert says. “What d’you want to do now, buttercup?”</p>
<p>Jaskier considers the question for a while. “I want a drink, and a decent tavern to play in,” he says at last. “And then...and then I never want to have to think about Valdo Marx again.”</p>
<p>“Alright,” Eskel says. “We can do that.”</p>
<p>“There’s a good tavern down a ways,” Lambert says. “Best ale in Cidaris.”</p>
<p>Geralt just nods. Jaskier takes a deep breath - they’re near the docks, so it smells like fish and saltwater, but it feels like the first unhindered breath he’s had in years. To hell with Valdo Marx. Let him drink himself to death in a shitty little tavern, far from Jaskier; let him be forgotten, as he should be, by everyone who matters in the world.</p>
<p>“Sounds good,” he says. “I want to try out that new song I’ve been working on, with the harpies.”</p>
<p>Geralt hums approvingly.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>The song with the harpies turns out to be quite a hit - enough of one, in fact, that a stocky, weatherbeaten beta approaches the pack as they’re eating, after Jaskier’s performance. She sets her feet like someone who’s used to having the floor move under her, and clears her throat to get their attention. “We’ve a siren problem,” she says bluntly. “Think they’re nesting on some of the islands offshore. They’ve hit five ships this month; better part of three dozen dead in all.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder at a table with seven other weatherbeaten, sturdy looking people watching them, all looking wary and hopeful. “We’ll go in together on your pay, if you’ll clear them out for us, witchers.”</p>
<p>Jaskier’s alphas glance at each other. It’s Lambert who says, “Pull up a chair and give us some details, but yeah, we can probably do that.”</p>
<p>Captain Pola, as she introduces herself, gives them as much information as she can - not much, since most of the survivors of the sirens can give little more detail than “lots” and “horrible shrieking” - settles on what Jaskier thinks is probably a fair price for the work, and agrees that they can use her ship to go hunting. She’ll bring a bare skeleton crew of sailors - just enough to keep the ship moving - so the witchers will have room to work.</p>
<p>Jaskier takes a deep breath once Captain Pola has gone back to the other captains with the good news, and says, “I have to come too.”</p>
<p>Three pairs of golden eyes fix on him. Lambert scowls. “Buttercup -”</p>
<p>“This is dangerous enough that it needs all three of you,” Jaskier says, “and I don’t think leaving me alone in Cidaris is a good idea.”</p>
<p>Eskel grimaces. “No,” he says unhappily. “This is going to take at least a few days, and leaving you alone in a city - no. Ugh.”</p>
<p>Geralt says, very <em>very</em> reluctantly, “Probably fight harder to keep you safe.”</p>
<p>“I promise I will stay in a cabin and not put myself in any unnecessary danger,” Jaskier pledges. “But - well. I think I have to come.”</p>
<p>“You’re right, but I hate it,” Eskel says. Geralt sighs. Lambert swears, quietly, and leans over to tuck his face into the curve of Jaskier’s throat, breathing in his scent hungrily. Jaskier tangles a hand in Lambert’s tunic and just hangs on.</p>
<p>“There’s one silver lining, I suppose,” Eskel sighs.</p>
<p>“Hm?”</p>
<p>“We can get our bard some really <em>nice</em> lute strings.”</p>
<p>Jaskier’s jaw drops. “Siren vocal cords,” he breathes. They’re the best - and far and away the most expensive - lute strings on the continent.</p>
<p>“Only the best for our buttercup,” Lambert mumbles against his throat.</p>
<p>“You are the sweetest alphas in the world,” Jaskier murmurs, and means it.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Jaskier discovers very quickly that he does not, in fact, enjoy sailing. He had high hopes of a pleasant beginning to the voyage, at least - the wind in his hair, the endless beauty of the ocean, the jolly songs of sailors as they do incomprehensible things to the rigging - but unfortunately the wind tends to be rather cold, the ocean is admittedly very beautiful but sadly also very bumpy, the sailors aren’t exactly jolly - though they do sing - and Jaskier is, to everyone’s dismay, extremely prone to seasickness.</p>
<p>Witchers, of course, are not subject to such mortal weaknesses, which <em>does</em> mean that there’s always a witcher at Jaskier’s side to make sure he stays hydrated and doesn’t fall over the side of the ship while vomiting miserably into the water.</p>
<p>They’re two days out of Cidaris when the sirens finally show up, and Jaskier, though he obediently takes shelter in the captain’s cabin, can’t help peering out through a porthole to see his witchers in action at last, and what he sees is nothing short of <em>magnificent</em>. His witchers see the sirens coming well before any of the sailors do, and prepare for battle by drinking some of the truly terrifying potions which Jaskier is strictly forbidden from ever trying - not that he’d want to, given how they smell. The potions turn their skin chalk-white and their eyes pitch-black, and the sailors shrink from them in terror, but Jaskier can’t feel anything but sheer awe. His alphas are <em>always</em> beautiful, the handsomest men in the world, but like this they are <em>otherworldly</em>, more than human, glorious and terrible. Jaskier is going to write them <em>so many songs</em>.</p>
<p>Sirens, they’ve explained to Jaskier, are especially vulnerable to Igni and explosive bombs, and so Eskel takes point, with Lambert flinging bombs in support of his astonishingly powerful Signs, and Geralt dispatching any sirens who reach the deck of the ship.</p>
<p>Jaskier spends the whole battle with his heart in his throat and the song almost writing itself in his mind. Eskel’s Igni seems as strong as dragonfire; Lambert’s bombs are booming punctuation to the sirens’ screeching. Geralt seems to dance across the deck, sword flashing in the midday sun, siren ichor spattering in wide arcs around him.</p>
<p>And when the battle is done, Geralt presents Jaskier quite proudly with a complete set of siren vocal cords, ready to be dried and made into lute strings. Jaskier nearly cries.</p>
<p>He plays his new <em>Siren Song</em> at the same tavern where they got the contract, three miserable days of seasickness later, and every sailor in the tavern joins in on the choruses. Several of them buy him drinks, though the one beta who moves to slap him on the back re-thinks that <em>very</em> quickly at Geralt’s nearly subterranean growl.</p>
<p>“You’re good, bard,” Captain Pola says, late that night when they’ve all had quite a bit of ale - Jaskier and his alphas haven’t had to buy a drink all night, since it seems every sailor in the place wants to buy them a round. “<em>Damn</em> good. What’re you doing down here with us, instead of up in the palace?</p>
<p>“I’d rather be down here,” Jaskier tells her, quite honestly. “The company’s better.”</p>
<p>Captain Pola eyes him dubiously, then turns her eyes to Geralt, who is winning a Gwent tournament, and Eskel, who is regaling a table of sailors with a truly improbable story about a succubus, and Lambert, who is leaning against Jaskier while playing a sort of fast-paced knife game with a couple of sailors. “Strange company you keep, indeed.”</p>
<p>“The finest company in the world,” Jaskier says. “There are no better alphas anywhere than my pack.”</p>
<p>“Huh,” she says, and raises her mug of ale to him. “Well. All gods’ blessings on you and your alphas, bard.”</p>
<p>“And on you and your crew,” Jaskier replies, beaming. He’s - he’s happy. He’s surrounded by rowdy, drunken sailors, several of them alphas, but he’s not worried; <em>his</em> alphas are here, and he’s got a knife on his belt, and no one in this tavern would even dream of raising a hand to him anyhow, not to the witchers’ bard.</p>
<p>Not the witchers’ <em>omega</em>, but their bard.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>They head east again after Cidaris, planning to loop down towards the border with Cintra and then up along the Mahakam Mountains to the Pontar Gap, and thence through Kaedwen to the Blue Mountains and home.</p>
<p>Home.</p>
<p>Jaskier hasn’t had a home since his parents sold him, but Kaer Morhen - crumbling and cold though it may be, too large for its few remaining Wolves and full of dreadful memories - Kaer Morhen is far, far more a home than Lettenhove ever was.</p>
<p>Jaskier wants to curl up in the big comfortable bedroom den that he shares with his alphas, its walls hung with ancient tapestries and its floor heaped with thick fur rugs and its bed easily large enough for four big men. He wants to spend long afternoons in the kitchen with Vesemir, learning to cook and bake and make preserves. He wants to curl up in the most comfortable armchair in the marvelous library, full as it is of texts so ancient even Oxenfurt doesn’t own copies, and spend hours upon hours devouring knowledge on every topic he could dream of wanting to learn. He wants to sit down at the long table in the main hall and listen to the witchers talk, and exchange grins with Gardis across the table when Clovis goes off on another rant, and let Lambert or Geralt lean against him and pretend to fall asleep after a long morning’s training. He wants to slide into the hot springs and let his alphas wash his hair and hold him close, safe and warm and utterly contented.</p>
<p>He wants to see his family again - the family who <em>chose</em> him. Vesemir and Gardis and Aubry, the father and brothers he’s always wanted; Clovis and Gwen and Frank like rowdy cousins; Coën his brother-in-law, just as confused by the Wolves as Jaskier is, and just as fond of them, too.</p>
<p>“You smell...odd,” Eskel says, settling beside Jaskier on the log beside the fire. Jaskier hums. Eskel chuckles and turns his attention to the mending in his hands - one of Lambert’s tunics, torn during a recent battle with a kikimora. “You’ll turn into Geralt if you’re not careful.”</p>
<p>Jaskier laughs. Lambert emerges from the woods and flops down on the ground beside him, propping his head on Jaskier’s knee. “Fuck, don’t do that - one of the grumpy bastard is plenty!”</p>
<p>“You love him dearly,” Jaskier points out.</p>
<p>“I adore him, but he’s still a taciturn ass,” Lambert says.</p>
<p>“You’re just pissed he got the kill on that kikimora,” Eskel says, reaching down to rub his fingers through Lambert’s hair. Lambert grumbles even as he tilts his head into the caress. “But really, Jaskier, you do smell a bit odd.”</p>
<p>“I was thinking about home,” Jaskier admits.</p>
<p>“Lettenhove?” Lambert asks, craning his head to frown up at Jaskier.</p>
<p>“No. Lettenhove hasn’t been home in...years.” Jaskier swallows. “Kaer Morhen.”</p>
<p>Eskel nods. “Midsummer’s when we usually start thinking wistfully of Vesemir’s cooking.”</p>
<p>“And the hot springs,” Lambert adds.</p>
<p>“The <em>bed</em>,” Geralt says, stepping out of the bushes with a string of gutted rabbits dangling from one hand.</p>
<p>“The bed,” Eskel agrees, sighing. “And enough time to really enjoy ourselves properly.”</p>
<p>“Fuck yes,” Lambert agrees.</p>
<p>Jaskier licks his lips. “<em>Fuck</em> yes,” he says. It's not that they’ve been <em>chaste</em>, these months on the Path - his alphas are, as he as observed before, randy fuckers - but out in the wilderness, or in the dubious comfort and safety of an inn’s bedroom, they don’t really want to let down their guards enough for anything fancy. They have been extremely attentive with their mouths and hands, and Jaskier has taken immense pleasure in using his <em>own</em> hands - and, recently and quite tentatively, his mouth - to bring them pleasure, reveling in the way they shake apart under his ministrations.</p>
<p>He hadn’t thought he’d like using his mouth, after the way his former alphas used to use him. He can still remember the pain in his jaw, the choking dreadfulness of having a prick forcing its way down his throat, the way they would yank at his hair - longer then, the way so many alphas prefer it - and force him to take their pricks, never mind his weeping. But that was then, and his witchers - his glorious Wolves - would never do such things.</p>
<p>It was Geralt, the first time he dared - Geralt, who is always so utterly delighted to use his mouth on <em>Jaskier</em>, who seems happiest with Jaskier’s prick in his mouth or his tongue deep in Jaskier’s ass. They were in an inn room, and Lambert and Eskel were out dealing with a nightwraith. Geralt had lain still, propped up on pillows with his hands behind his head, and murmured instructions as calmly and gently as he does when teaching Jaskier to use his dagger: “Lick, yes, just like that - suck, just a little - good, Jaskier, <em>fuck</em>, that’s good.”</p>
<p>He’d peaked with a moan that may well be one of the loveliest noises Jaskier has ever heard, and lain there gasping on the bed, and Jaskier had felt - had felt <em>powerful</em>. <em>He</em> did that. He rendered the strongest, most dangerous alpha he’s ever met utterly limp with pleasure, dazed and panting with ecstasy.</p>
<p>After that he’d been a lot less reluctant to try it with Eskel and Lambert. Eskel’s always a bit intimidating, as large as he is - better-endowed than any other alpha that Jaskier has ever encountered - but he’s so gentle and patient that Jaskier can’t truly be afraid of him, and Lambert is, well, <em>Lambert</em>, foul-mouthed and so sweet it hurts sometimes beneath the bluster. Jaskier’s actually forgotten <em>how</em> to be afraid of Lambert.</p>
<p>So he and his Wolves have been entertaining each other with hands and mouths and rubbing against each other in the coziness of their wilderness bedroll nests or inn beds, but Jaskier -</p>
<p>Jaskier, to his own blank astonishment, wants to be <em>fucked</em>.</p>
<p>Wants to be knotted and held close and <em>filled</em>.</p>
<p>It’s a new sensation, honestly. Oh, in heat, of course, every omega wants to be fucked in heat, but the idea of being half-desperate for it <em>outside</em> of heat is rather new.</p>
<p>Of course he’s managed to discover this new desire during the months that his alphas <em>won’t</em> fuck him.</p>
<p>To be perfectly fair, they won’t fuck each other, either, so at least Jaskier’s not alone in his frustration. And they are very, very eager to give Jaskier pleasure any <em>other</em> way. Jaskier can’t really complain.</p>
<p>But it does lend a certain edge to his eagerness to return to Kaer Morhen.</p>
<p>“Well now you don’t smell <em>odd</em>,” Eskel says, voice dropping low.</p>
<p>“Smell really fucking <em>good</em>,” Lambert murmurs, shifting around until he’s kneeling between Jaskier’s legs and licking his lips as he looks up to meet Jaskier’s eyes.</p>
<p>“Give us something nice to watch while we make supper,” Eskel suggests. Geralt hums agreement.</p>
<p>“What d’you think, buttercup, should we give them a show?” Lambert asks.</p>
<p>Jaskier grins and starts unlacing his trousers. “Well, I <em>am</em> a performer, my darling wolf, and how could I desire a finer audience than my pack?”</p>
<p>Lambert laughs, breath hot against Jaskier’s fingers. “Can’t argue with that.”</p>
<p>Jaskier gets his trousers and braies undone, and Lambert licks his lips as Jaskier tugs his prick free. “Fuck, buttercup, you always smell so <em>fucking good</em>,” he rasps, and licks a stripe up Jaskier’s prick. Jaskier grabs at the sword-belts crossing Lambert’s shoulder and the fabric of his tunic and hangs on, head falling back, as Lambert sets about giving the slowest, most luxuriously torturous blowjob Jaskier has ever had the pleasure of receiving.</p>
<p>His mouth is hot - hotter than a human’s would be, Jaskier thinks - and his tongue is terrifyingly agile, and he hasn’t, so far as Jaskier has been able to discover, got a gag reflex - none of the witchers do. Jaskier goes straight through begging to incoherent moaning in about a minute flat, and then he’s just hanging on for the ride, gasping and whimpering and writhing as Lambert swallows him down. Eskel and Geralt <em>do</em> manage to make supper, but it takes them a lot longer than it usually does; both of them keep turning to stare hungrily at Jaskier and Lambert, and after a minute or two Geralt starts making a low, nearly subvocal growling noise of arousal.</p>
<p>After some uncounted time - long enough that Jaskier’s desperate whines of pleasure have gone thin and high, and he’s shaking beneath Lambert’s hands curled around his hips, yanking at the sword-belts in jerky uncoordinated movements, as Lambert hums his delighted pleasure around Jaskier’s prick - Eskel says, voice a little shaky, “Supper time, little wolf; let our omega come.”</p>
<p>Lambert’s eyes crinkle as he grins up at Jaskier and bends his head, swallowing around the head of Jaskier’s prick, and Jaskier wails his release into the quiet evening.</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck,</em>” Geralt mutters, and shoves a hand down his own trousers, stumbling back to brace against a tree as he spills, eyes locked on Lambert and Jaskier.</p>
<p>Eskel takes a deep breath, clearly savoring the mingled smells of all of their arousal and pleasure. “Fuck,” he murmurs, stepping closer. “That’s just <em>lovely</em>. Come here, little wolf.”</p>
<p>Lambert leans back, letting Jaskier’s prick slip slowly from his lips, and gives Jaskier a broad grin and a wink before rising to his feet and turning into Eskel’s arms. Eskel kisses him, licking into his mouth ravenously, and tugs at the laces of Lambert’s trousers, yanking them open and shoving a hand in. Lambert whimpers and arches against Eskel’s hand, and it takes only a few strokes before he’s spilling across Eskel’s fingers. Eskel purrs, pleased, against Lambert’s mouth, and guides Lambert backwards to sit down on the log beside Jaskier. Jaskier leans against Lambert’s shoulder as Eskel lifts his hand to his lips and licks it clean.</p>
<p>“What about you?” Jaskier asks. Eskel’s prick is straining against the codpiece of his trousers. Eskel hums thoughtfully and grins.</p>
<p>“After supper,” he says.</p>
<p>Jaskier doesn’t think they’ve ever eaten supper so quickly, and after the meal is done and the fire is banked, Lambert and Geralt pull Eskel over to the nest of bedrolls, and Jaskier kisses Eskel, long and slow and sweet, while Geralt and Lambert trade hungry kisses around Eskel’s lovely prick, the sloppiest dual blowjob imaginable. It does not take Eskel long to peak, growling into Jaskier’s mouth as he tries to buck his hips against the weight of both the other alphas atop his legs, and Jaskier leans back to look at the stunningly beautiful sight of his sated alphas.</p>
<p>Jaskier settles down beside Eskel, snuggling in close as Geralt cleans them all up and Lambert moves up to lie on Jaskier’s other side. “I was thinking about home,” Jaskier murmurs as Geralt curls up around Lambert, resting one big hand on Jaskier’s chest. “But - as lovely as Kaer Morhen is - I’m home right here, with you.”</p>
<p>“That’s fucking sappy,” Lambert murmurs. “Our sweet little buttercup.”</p>
<p>“Hm,” Geralt murmurs. “Pack.”</p>
<p>“Pack,” Eskel agrees, voice warm and sweet as honey from the comb.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>They follow the Chotla River to Brenna and cut across to Mayena, and then head up the Ina River towards the mountains; along the way the witchers take contracts on several wyverns and a kikimora queen, a nightwraith and an alghoul, several dozen drowners and a couple of nests of nekkers. Jaskier sings in nearly every town they pass through. <em>The Sirens’ Lament</em> is quite popular, and so is <em>The Bruxa Hunt</em>, and Jaskier successfully earns them meals and half-price rooms almost every night they’re in a town.</p>
<p>One night about two days north of Carreras, halfway up to the Pontar Gap, Lambert flops down with his head in Jaskier’s lap while Eskel and Geralt tend the horses and says, “So this has been a really fucking good season.”</p>
<p>“It has?” Jaskier asks.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Lambert stretches out luxuriously as Jaskier runs his fingers through his hair. “We’ve kept a hell of a lot more coin than we usually would.” Jaskier raises an eyebrow curiously, and Lambert grins, crooked and wry. “Usually we get charged extra for a room, or food. Witchers aren’t popular customers. This year, though…” He grins more broadly. “Hell, they’re practically paying <em>us</em> to stay!”</p>
<p>“You’ve made back the cost of Pegasus three or four times by now, just counting your share of room and board,” Eskel puts in.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Jaskier says, marveling. And that’s not counting the money he’s making, which has gone to nice outfits and a new case for his lute, a pair of beautifully decorated traveling boots and several small notebooks for writing down his songs, a waterproofed cape and sturdy saddlebags, all sort of things that his alphas <em>don’t</em> have to spend their own coin on. And he’s been making plans to maybe buy things <em>for</em> them. They won’t let him pay for things they consider pack business, but he doesn’t think Geralt would turn down, say, a nice new saddle for Roach. Eskel would probably like a new tunic in his favorite deep red. Lambert would be delighted by a set of proper glassware for his distilling experiments.</p>
<p>Having enough money to think about buying presents for people is...odd. Very odd. But it’s very nice, too. Jaskier is making vague hopeful plans to buy things for <em>all</em> of the Wolves, and Coën too, once they get closer to the Blue Mountains. It will be nice to have something to give out for the midwinter solstice. Spices for Vesemir, perhaps. A set of pretty ribbons for Gardis, for Aubry to braid into his hair - or for him to braid into Aubry’s, depending on how they’re both feeling. A book of tales for Coën, stories of bold knights from the Golden Age. A really nice warm sweater for Aubry, because he gives the best hugs and a good sweater is like a hug you can <em>wear</em> and Aubry ought to get hugs back. Candy for Frank and Gwen, who Jaskier doesn’t know as well, but all witchers appear to have a taste for sweets. And for Clovis...Jaskier is tempted to hunt down the oddest craft he can find and bring the materials up to Kaer Morhen so that Clovis has something to snarl at all winter.</p>
<p>Scrimshaw, perhaps. Clovis might like scrimshaw. And watching him learn it will be entertaining for everyone else.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>The Pontar Gap is the first time they’ve really crossed their own trail at all; Jaskier suspects they wouldn’t have done so before Wolvenburg except that there are only so many places to get through the mountains; as it is, they still keep to the other side of the Pontar River, planning to cross to the northern bank on the big bridges at Hagge. There are always plenty of drowners near rivers, though, so the fact that they came through not three months ago isn’t really a problem when it comes to finding contracts; on the contrary, every town they pass through has something for them, drowners or water hags or once something that turns out, after a very long night in which Jaskier and Lambert grow steadily more worried, to be a kelpie which decided that Scorpion was the most attractive horse-shaped thing in the area. Eskel makes quite a good story out of it, with Geralt adding dry little asides that leave Jaskier weeping with laughter, and Jaskier turns the whole thing into a comic song, and the first time he sings it, people ask for an <em>encore</em>, so he figures the night of fretting was worth it overall.</p>
<p>And then they get to Hagge.</p>
<p>There are four or five nights’ worth of contracts in Hagge, as there usually are in large cities, and they pick an inn that the Wolves have visited before and consider worth the money, and Jaskier makes what has become his usual deal for a half-price room and free meals in exchange for his entertaining the inn’s other patrons.</p>
<p>The first night goes as he has begun to expect nights will; Eskel stays with him while Geralt and Lambert go looking for whatever is causing trouble in the sewers, and Jaskier sings and plays and makes quite a nice hatful of money, and he and the innkeeper both end the evening entirely pleased with their bargain.</p>
<p>The next morning, though, Jaskier goes downstairs surrounded by his alphas to discover there’s someone waiting for him in the inn’s main room. <em>Him</em>, not his Wolves.</p>
<p>“You are Jaskier, the witchers’ bard?” the liveried female beta inquires.</p>
<p>Jaskier bows low, flourishing his most recently-acquired hat. It’s quite a good hat, deep red and adorned with a very fancy feather, and he’s very pleased with it. “I have that honor, yes.”</p>
<p>“Milord Piotr has heard of your talent, and extends an invitation for you to play tomorrow night at the feast he will be hosting. For, naturally, an appropriate fee,” the woman says, smiling.</p>
<p>“Ah,” Jaskier says, and glances at his alphas. Geralt is, as usual, nearly unreadable, though Jaskier thinks there’s surprise in the slight arch of his eyebrows. Eskel is frowning a little, worried. Lambert, though, is starting to grin.</p>
<p>“Up to you, buttercup,” he says quietly, and Eskel and Geralt nod. Jaskier takes a deep breath.</p>
<p>“I would be honored to play for my lord Piotr and his guests, provided I may bring a companion,” he says as steadily as he can.</p>
<p>“Naturally,” the woman replies.</p>
<p>Jaskier has to sit down in a corner after she leaves, having given directions to Lord Piotr’s house and instructions on when to arrive, and just shake for a while. His alphas cluster around him, all looking very worried. “You didn’t have to agree,” Eskel says softly, kneeling in front of Jaskier and frowning in concern. “You can still refuse.”</p>
<p>“I want to,” Jaskier says quietly. “I -” He pauses, trying to put his whirling thoughts in order. “I was my parents’ disappointing omega son,” he says at last. “I was a good student, but everyone at Oxenfurt knew I’d never really be a musician worth the name, because omegas don’t get to become bards, don’t get to go out in the world and make names for themselves. And then I was a ruined omega, and my only worth was how much enjoyment alphas could get from using me.” He takes a slow, deep breath. “Lord Piotr, whoever the hell he is, didn’t send for an omega. He sent for a <em>bard</em>. The witchers’ bard. I - I want that to be how I’m known. How I’m thought of. I don’t mind - no, that’s not right. I <em>like</em> being your omega. I am happier than I’ve ever been, as part of your pack. But outside our pack…”</p>
<p>“You want to be known for what you can <em>do</em>, not what you are,” Eskel says slowly.</p>
<p>Lambert snorts softly. “Yeah,” he says. “We get that.”</p>
<p>Geralt nods.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Eskel says. “Well then. I guess the only question is which of us you want to bring along.”</p>
<p>Lambert recoils like he’s seen an unexpected snake. “<em>Not it!</em>”</p>
<p>Jaskier claps a hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh. Eskel snorts. “Well, Geralt’s the pretty one,” he teases. Geralt’s eyes go very wide.</p>
<p>“Yeah, pretty boy,” Lambert chortles. “You get to go be decorative.”</p>
<p>“If I promise to find you appropriate clothing in dark colors only?” Jaskier asks, giving Geralt a hopeful look. Geralt winces, but he nods.</p>
<p>Eskel and Lambert exchange a look of deep relief. Jaskier grins at Geralt. “And then Lambert can come with me next time.”</p>
<p>Geralt nods firmly. “We’ll take turns.”</p>
<p>“Hey wait!” Lambert says, eyes going wide. “Nobody wants me around nobles! That is a fucking terrible idea!”</p>
<p>Jaskier winks at Geralt and then turns his very best pleading eyes on Lambert. “For me?”</p>
<p>Lambert makes a sort of desperate strangled noise and covers his face with both hands. “Eskel, help!”</p>
<p>“Nah, I think taking turns sounds fair,” Eskel says, standing and clapping Lambert on the shoulder.</p>
<p>“I am <em>betrayed</em>,” Lambert says, draping himself over Jaskier like a particularly large cat. “Forsaken! <em>Abandoned!</em>”</p>
<p>Jaskier bites his lip and shakes with silent laughter; Eskel and Geralt don’t bother muffling theirs. “Poor little wolf,” Eskel says, and Lambert grumbles “<em>Not little</em>” against Jaskier’s throat.</p>
<p>“You can help me choose Geralt’s outfit,” Jaskier offers, and Lambert lights up, bouncing to his feet.</p>
<p>“Deal,” he says, and eyes Geralt speculatively. Geralt backs up a step, looking distinctly dismayed.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Lambert is only an asshole most of the time; he and Jaskier ransack the market’s secondhand clothing stalls and turn up what is actually a truly nice outfit, black silk with subtle dark-grey embroidery, near enough to Geralt’s size that it only requires a little tailoring. Geralt actually looks faintly relieved when they wrangle him into it, though Jaskier refrains from telling him that if he wants to look unobtrusive, being six-foot-plus of extremely attractive white-haired alpha dressed in all black and wearing at least three knives is <em>not</em> the way to do it.</p>
<p>Lord Piotr turns out to be a young beta who is <em>absolutely fascinated</em> by monsters, in the way some people are obsessed with horses or fancy pigeons or lace patterns. He wants to hear <em>all</em> of Jaskier’s witcher songs, and also spends most of the evening staring at Geralt in ill-concealed delight, while Geralt attempts to blend into the shadows beside a pillar. Lord Piotr’s dinner guests are mostly around the same age and willing to at least fake enthusiasm for his interests, and Jaskier finds himself peppered with all the questions they’re too intimidated to bring to Geralt: how big is a kikimora? Are drowners really the bodies of drowned men? Do sirens sing to lure sailors into their watery lairs?</p>
<p>Jaskier answers what he can, and discovers that he can, in fact, answer almost everything. Between listening to his alphas and reading his way through a decent chunk of Kaer Morhen’s library last year, he’s absorbed a lot more information than he’d realized about monsters and how to hunt them. He wouldn’t want to try it <em>himself</em>, fuck no - not without a silver sword and a witcher beside him - but he can certainly discourse on it intelligently enough, and the few things he cannot answer, Geralt does, if in very few words.</p>
<p>It’s a damned good night, and Jaskier goes back to the inn with a purse full of gold and a song in his heart, and Geralt’s hand warm on the small of his back, and the rest of their pack welcome them with open arms.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jaskier’s pack reaches Kaer Morhen in the middle of the first big snowstorm of winter - quite literally in the middle; Jaskier is clinging to Pegasus’s saddle, Geralt leading Pegasus and Roach both, because Jaskier can’t see a damn thing through the blowing snow. He’s fairly sure Scorpion and Lambert’s nameless gelding (which Jaskier has dubbed Stubborn, if only to himself) are still behind them with the wagon, but he can’t tell; the sound of the wagon’s wheels on stone vanish in the hissing wind.</p>
<p>Geralt lifts him down off Pegasus and doesn’t set him on the stone, but carries him up to the main doors. “Go in and get warm!” he yells - anything quieter would be lost in the storm - and Jaskier stumbles into the entrance hall, shivering despite his heavy cloak and fur-lined boots.</p>
<p>“Hello?” he calls, and a moment later Gardis comes tumbling out of the dining hall, Aubry and Coën on his tail.</p>
<p>“Shit, little brother, you’re half frozen!” Gardis blurts, and wraps Jaskier up in his arms, radiating heat as only a witcher can. Aubry ruffles Jaskier’s hair affectionately and goes trotting out past him, probably to help Jaskier’s alphas put the horses away; Coën pauses long enough to murmur, “Welcome home, gracious omega,” before following Aubry. Gardis tugs Jaskier into the dining hall, taking his snow-covered cloak away and sitting him down in front of the fire and heaping furs around him until Jaskier’s not sure he could move if he wanted to, then flopping down next to him and curling around him protectively. Someone chuckles, and Jaskier looks up to see Vesemir standing over them, holding a steaming bowl in both hands.</p>
<p>“Welcome home, pup,” Vesemir says, and hands Jaskier the bowl; it’s stew, broth thick with meat and hearty vegetables.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Jaskier says.</p>
<p>Vesemir smiles and reaches down to ruffle his hair, much as Aubry did, before settling in a chair beside the fire.</p>
<p>“It’s just the eight of us this year,” Gardis says. “Clovis’s pack are staying in Toussaint. Frank wrote to say Gwen broke his leg pretty bad, so they’re staying where it’s warm instead of trying to travel in the snow.”</p>
<p>“That makes sense,” Jaskier says. “Also, ugh, poor Gwen.” He doesn’t know the alpha well, but a broken leg doesn’t sound like a good time.</p>
<p>“I’d feel sorrier for him, but Frank <em>also</em> said they’d landed a contract to protect a winery from sabotage for the winter, so they’re going to be lounging around drinking good Toussainti wine while we freeze our asses off up here.”</p>
<p>“...I feel much less sympathetic,” Jaskier laughs. </p>
<p>There’s a thump, as of a heavy door swinging shut, and then Jaskier’s alphas and Aubry and Coën come piling in, all of them stomping snow off their boots as they shrug out of their cloaks. Jaskier’s alphas come over to flop down around him, and Jaskier somehow ends up with all three of their heads in his lap, which makes finding a place to put his stew down so he can <em>eat</em> it a little more complicated.</p>
<p>“Here,” Aubry says, taking the bowl and holding it steady as he sits down almost on top of Lambert - Lambert squawks indignantly but doesn’t move - and Jaskier smiles his gratitude and starts to eat, ravenous as soon as the first bite hits his tongue. Vesemir’s cooking is, as always, amazing, and the hot stew warms Jaskier from the inside out.</p>
<p>“We don’t get stew?” Eskel asks plaintively.</p>
<p>“You get stew when you stop lying on your poor omega like he’s a pillow,” Vesemir says, smiling. “I know I taught you better than that.”</p>
<p>Geralt closes his eyes and nestles closer to Jaskier, but Eskel and Lambert sigh and roll to their feet. Jaskier takes his bowl back from Aubry with another grateful smile, and Aubry smiles back, soft and warm.</p>
<p>Coën comes up from the kitchen with a tray holding three more bowls of stew, and Eskel and Lambert relieve him of it, Eskel clapping him on the shoulder, before sitting down on the hearth to wolf down their meals. Coën settles beside Aubry, leaning against his shoulder much more casually than he would have dared last spring, and Jaskier beams at this evidence that Gardis’s pack is thriving.</p>
<p>“Geralt, dear heart, you should eat,” he says gently. Geralt hums and burrows deeper into the furs surrounding Jaskier, clearly not interested in moving.</p>
<p>“Eh, I’ll eat his share,” Lambert says, though what he actually does is set the third bowl aside on the mantel where it will stay warm. Jaskier laughs and sets his empty bowl aside, and starts petting Geralt’s hair; Geralt begins to purr.</p>
<p>“You’re looking well,” Gardis says. “All of you. Good season?”</p>
<p>“Not bad hunting,” Eskel allows, “but also it turns out having a bard along is extremely useful.” He grins at Jaskier. “Got free meals and half-price rooms pretty much the whole season.”</p>
<p>“No shit,” Gardis says, and ruffles Jaskier’s hair vigorously. “Well done, little brother!”</p>
<p>Jaskier beams.</p>
<p>“We heard a song I think may have been yours, while we were in Poviss,” Coën says, smiling broadly. “How did it go - <em>The siren’s wings are broad and blue, her voice is pure and shrill / she swoops upon the ship below, too eager for the kill / to note that on the heaving deck, instead of sailors bold, there stand three witchers sword in hand, the silver gleaming cold…</em>”</p>
<p>Coën has a very nice tenor, and holds the tune well. Jaskier blushes to the tips of his ears. “Yes, that one’s mine.”</p>
<p>“Not bad,” Vesemir says. “You’ll have to sing us the whole thing some evening.”</p>
<p>Jaskier ducks his head, face burning hot. Gods, it’s one thing for the people out in the world to like his songs - a glorious thing, a thing that makes him utterly ecstatic - but for <em>Vesemir</em> to like them? Vesemir, and Gardis, and Aubry, and Coën? That’s -</p>
<p>That’s a feeling so big and warm that his heart aches with it.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>They all sleep in the next morning, snuggled together in the big pack bed. Jaskier wakes to find that Lambert and Geralt are still fast asleep, wound around him so tightly he’s fairly sure he won’t be able to get up until they wake. Eskel is sitting up, stroking Geralt’s hair softly and smiling down at them all so sweetly it makes Jaskier’s breath catch.</p>
<p>“Good morning, sweetling,” Eskel murmurs.</p>
<p>“Mmmm, yes it is,” Jaskier agrees, managing to wriggle one arm free so he can start stroking Lambert’s hair. Lambert starts purring in his sleep. “It’s good to be home.”</p>
<p>“Very, very good,” Eskel says, and leans down to kiss him, warm and soft and sweet right until Jaskier opens his mouth and the kiss turns hot and fervent. Jaskier whimpers quietly into it, and Eskel purrs.</p>
<p>“Mm, wha?” Lambert slurs, blinking awake. “<em>Mmm.</em> That’s fuckin’ pretty.” He props himself up on an elbow and pushes the blankets down a bit so he can stroke a hand over Jaskier’s chest, scratching gently through the whorls of hair. Jaskier wriggles a little, as much as he can with Geralt still wound around him, and moans into the kiss.</p>
<p>“So,” Eskel murmurs against Jaskier’s lips, “what do you want to do today, sweetling?”</p>
<p>Jaskier considers the question as Eskel trails kisses along his jaw and bites gently at his earlobe. “I want a good long soak in the hot springs, a chance to have a good gossip with Gardis and Coën, and a nice supper. But first, I want to properly enjoy this marvelous bed.”</p>
<p>“We can get behind that,” Lambert says.</p>
<p>Geralt purrs, startling Jaskier a little - he hadn’t realized the alpha was awake - and slides a hand down to trail his fingers gently over Jaskier’s half-hard prick. Jaskier moans softly, and Eskel kisses the sound away.</p>
<p>“How do you want us?” Lambert asks.</p>
<p>Jaskier considers many options, humming softly into Eskel’s kiss. “I want Lambert to fuck me, Geralt to suck me, and Eskel to fuck Geralt,” he decides at last.</p>
<p>Geralt makes a soft whining noise. Lambert growls. Eskel sucks in a harsh breath, and his pupils dilate until there’s barely any yellow showing. “You have fucking good ideas, buttercup,” Lambert murmurs. “Come here, then.”</p>
<p>There’s a rather confused few minutes of rearranging, and then Jaskier finds himself kneeling over Lambert’s lap, facing away from him, with Lambert propped up against the pillows at the head of the bed and his chin hooked over Jaskier’s shoulder to watch as Geralt, on his hands and knees, licks a stripe up Jaskier’s prick.</p>
<p>Jaskier lets his head fall back against Lambert’s shoulder and whines softly. Lambert has two fingers deep in him, stretching him slowly open; Eskel is doing the same to Geralt, who is purring deep in his chest.</p>
<p>By the time Eskel finally rumbles, “<em>Now</em>,” Jaskier is shuddering in pleasure and whining desperately; Lambert has four fingers buried in him and Geralt has swallowed his prick to the root and is purring around it, and it’s so fucking <em>good</em>. Lambert chuckles and lifts Jaskier effortlessly up, lowering him very carefully down onto his prick. Jaskier braces his hands on Geralt’s shoulders and rocks down, one slow inch at a time, until he’s fully seated on Lambert’s lovely prick, and then holds still, watching in awe and lust, as Eskel sinks achingly slowly into Geralt’s ass. Geralt moans throatily.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Jaskier says softly. “Oh, <em>fuck</em>, I have missed this.” Being filled at last - gods, he has been waiting for this since they left Kaer Morhen, more than eight months ago.</p>
<p>“So have I, buttercup,” Lambert murmurs in his ear, and bites gently at the line of his throat. “Fuck, you feel so <em>good</em>. So fucking good.”</p>
<p>“So do you,” Jaskier gasps. Lambert’s not quite as large as either Eskel or Geralt, but he’s a gracious plenty for all that, and Jaskier could almost weep with how amazing it feels. “Oh fuck, alphas, my alphas - <em>gods!</em>”</p>
<p>Lambert fucks up into him, and Eskel rolls his hips; Geralt moans loudly around Jaskier’s prick, arms shaking a little with the effort to keep from falling. Jaskier doesn’t bother trying to hold in his whimpers and whines, the loud moans that spill from his lips as Lambert nails that perfect spot inside him. His Wolves all love the sounds he makes.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take long, not this first proper fuck since last winter. Lambert tugs Jaskier down onto his knot and mouths desperately at Jaskier’s shoulder, shaking; Jaskier shouts as Lambert’s knot presses unrelentingly into him, and spills into Geralt’s mouth; Geralt moans and shudders, and Eskel curls down to sink his teeth into Geralt’s shoulder and wrap a hand hard around Geralt’s knot, bringing Geralt over his peak in turn.</p>
<p>“Eskel,” Jaskier pants, slumping back against Lambert, and Eskel chuckles, catching Geralt as he slumps and helping him collapse gently onto the bed next to Lambert’s legs. Geralt tucks his forehead against Jaskier’s bent knee and makes soft whining noises in the back of his throat as he comes down from his peak. “Eskel, come here,” Jaskier says, and Eskel shuffles forward between Lambert’s legs until he’s close enough for Jaskier to get a hand around his prick. It only takes a few strokes before Eskel spills, rumbling a deep moan that echoes off the walls, and collapses forward to rest his forehead on Jaskier’s other shoulder.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Lambert says at last. “We’ve gotta start finding a halfway mark where we can hole up for a week or so in summer. Nine months is too fuckin’ long.”</p>
<p>“Hm,” Geralt murmurs. “Kaer Seren’s halfway on the northern loop.”</p>
<p>“Good thinking,” Eskel mutters.</p>
<p>Jaskier muffles a chuckle. “Sounds good to me. Mmm. But right now I think I want a soak in the hot springs, and then food.”</p>
<p>“You want that, you got it, buttercup,” Lambert says, and the witchers carefully unwind themselves from around each other. Jaskier whines a little as Lambert’s knot shrinks enough to slip out of him, and Lambert kisses the back of his neck softly in apology. Eskel drapes a blanket over Jaskier and scoops him up, and Jaskier laughs and nuzzles against Eskel’s throat as the alpha carries him triumphantly off.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>It’s late enough in the morning that everyone else is in the hot springs, too. Coën is contentedly combing out Aubry’s hair while Aubry purrs; Gardis is lounging back against the side of the pool watching them happily; and Vesemir, in another pool, appears to be napping.</p>
<p>“Hey, little brother, I don’t think I have to ask how <em>your</em> morning is going,” Gardis greets Jaskier.</p>
<p>Jaskier grins and wriggles out of Eskel’s arms to slip into the water. “Indeed you do not.”</p>
<p>Jaskier’s alphas all look <em>very</em> smug as they join him in the pool - as well they might, really. They don’t brag, though - not his alphas. Even Lambert wouldn’t say anything that might make Jaskier feel cheapened. Instead, Eskel asks, “Any good contracts for you this year?”</p>
<p>“Ran across a whole nest of wyverns up near Yspaden, and the baron offered us three times the asking rate if we’d get rid of them before midsummer.” Gardis grins. “Turned out his son’s wedding was supposed to be on midsummer day, out in the middle of a field - prime wyvern-bait.”</p>
<p>“How’d that go?” Lambert asks, sliding behind Jaskier and starting to comb soap through his hair with gentle fingers.</p>
<p>“Really well, actually. Coën’s got a really gorgeously specific Aard; he managed to bring half a cliff down on the nest, killed one outright and dazed most of the rest. After that it was pretty simple. <em>And</em> the alchemists in Yspaden bought every venom gland we brought in, so between that and the baron’s fee, we didn’t have to worry about coin for a good two, three months afterwards.” Gardis stretches, looking very smug. “We make a good pack.”</p>
<p>Aubry hums agreement. Coën ducks his head like he’s embarrassed, but his eyes are shining and there’s a little smile playing around the corners of his mouth.</p>
<p>Jaskier beams. His brothers are happy, his alphas are happy - even Vesemir is obviously contented, dozing peacefully as his sons chatter - oh, it’s so good to be <em>home</em>.</p>
<p>Luncheon is cheerful but not particularly rowdy, and then Jaskier follows Vesemir into the kitchen and is astonished and delighted when Vesemir puts down his armful of plates and turns to wrap Jaskier up in a firm embrace. “Welcome home, pup,” Vesemir murmurs, and Jaskier hugs back as hard as he can.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he whispers.</p>
<p>“Thank <em>you</em>,” Vesemir says, pulling back far enough to rest their foreheads together. “I haven’t seen my pups so happy and well-fed at the end of the Path in years. <em>Decades</em>. Even with Remus, they were still ragged by autumn; feeding four witchers isn’t easy. There’s a reason most of the other Schools don’t go out in packs.”</p>
<p>Jaskier frowns. He hadn’t thought of that, for all that Coën has told him the Griffins used to walk the Path alone. It’s a trade-off, he supposes: one witcher can feed himself more easily on the fees for his kills, but is in more danger, while a pack can slay the monsters more easily, but will find it harder to support themselves on the same fees. But - come to think of it, Jaskier didn’t have to make any more hardtack while they were out on the Path. They had enough food, the whole way through.</p>
<p>“I am glad to have helped,” he says at last.</p>
<p>“You are a good pup, and I’m proud of you,” Vesemir says, and hugs him again before turning to start washing the dishes. Jaskier swallows the lump in his throat and dashes the tears from his eyes, then joins Vesemir at the sink, taking the first clean plate to wipe it dry.</p>
<p><em>You are a good pup, and I’m proud of you</em>. How often did Jaskier wish his sire would say something - <em>anything</em> - as encouraging and affectionate? And Vesemir has given him this gift without even thinking about it.</p>
<p>“Thank you, pack-father,” he says at last, and Vesemir knocks their shoulders together gently and hands him another plate to dry.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>The blizzard lets up after a day or so, and Jaskier slips back into the rhythm of the keep as though he never left: dagger practice in the morning, followed by a lovely soak in the hot springs with at least one of his alphas, a quiet luncheon, and a few hours of helping Vesemir in the kitchen, and then time in the library until supper, and after supper, talking or telling stories or singing with the Wolves and Coën. Jaskier sings all his new witcher songs, and Gardis and Aubry and Coën and Vesemir applaud them wholeheartedly, so Jaskier pesters Gardis for stories of the hunts his pack has been on, and makes new songs of those.</p>
<p>Gardis turns bright red and hides his face against Aubry’s shoulder the first time Jaskier sings a ballad praising his heroic rescue of a maiden who had been treed by a werewolf, but Aubry beams and asks Jaskier to sing it again a few nights later. Coën looks somewhere between delighted and stunned when Jaskier debuts a song in the Koviri round style - which he has convinced Lambert and Eskel to sing along with him - about a noble Griffin and his exploits. Aubry clearly doesn’t expect a song of his own, and Jaskier is delighted to surprise him with a slow, sweet tune of the gentlest Wolf rescuing a child from an arachas nest and carrying her home, a tale he got from Gardis specifically to turn into a song. And then, with help from all the younger Wolves, Jaskier crafts a ballad of Vesemir’s youth, when he wandered the Path with his pack and befriended a golden dragon, and convinces Lambert and Eskel and Gardis and Coën all to help him sing it while Aubry and Geralt clap their hands to provide a steady beat, and has the signal pleasure of seeing Vesemir go pink with astonished pleasure.</p>
<p>Compared to that, his midwinter gifts are almost anticlimactic, but Jaskier is shocked to discover that <em>all</em> the Wolves - and their lone Griffin - have gotten <em>him</em> gifts, and he is now in possession of a very fancy lute case, a set of griffin-feather quills with beautiful metal nibs, a book of poetry from the Golden Age, and a wyvern-hide vest - and from his own pack, a stunningly beautiful cloak, silk-lined and elegant, which he cannot <em>imagine</em> how they’ve kept hidden from him. It isn’t so much black as iridescent, and he can wear it with any of his fancy outfits. It’s perfect. Jaskier maybe cries a little, but he’s a bard, they’re meant to be dramatic, and anyhow it gives Geralt an excuse to kiss the tears away and then kiss Jaskier until he forgets to do anything but cling to Geralt and moan, so really, it’s all to the good in the end.</p>
<p>And each night when the singing is done and the hour grows late, Jaskier and his alphas go up to their big pack bed together.</p>
<p>Jaskier still can’t bear to present. Perhaps he’ll never be able to; perhaps it’s something he lost to the monsters of his past, like a scar which will never fade. But that doesn’t seem to matter to his alphas. They’ll have him any way he wants them to, and for anything Jaskier can’t give them, they have each other. Geralt apparently has no qualms whatsoever about going to his knees for his packmates, and Lambert seems to like being wrestled down when he’s in a certain mood, pinned and helpless and panting as Eskel murmurs, “Little wolf, our little wolf,” tenderly in his ear. Jaskier couldn’t do that - can’t imagine enjoying anything less gentle than his Wolves’ usual attentions - but Lambert likes it, so Jaskier is happy to watch, smelling nothing but honest lust and joy from his alphas as they take their pleasure in each other. And here in Kaer Morhen, far from the dangers of the Path, <em>all</em> of his alphas are happy to fuck him as often as he wants to be fucked, which, somewhat to everyone’s surprise, is very often indeed.</p>
<p>Jaskier can remember having an active and enthusiastic libido, back in Oxenfurt when all his bed-partners were imaginary. Apparently having the finest alphas in the world means that all of that eager lust has come rushing back, and while he can keep it banked to a low smolder out on the Path, well, here in Kaer Morhen there’s no reason to do so.</p>
<p>He’s so cheerfully randy, in fact, that he almost misses the first signs of his impending heat.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>It’s Geralt who mentions it, late one night as they’re all tangled around each other on the verge of sleep. He’s got his nose tucked against the nape of Jaskier’s neck, and he draws in a deep and contented breath, pauses, sniffs again, and murmurs, “Sweeter.”</p>
<p>“Sweeter?” Jaskier asks sleepily.</p>
<p>“Your scent. Sweeter.”</p>
<p>Jaskier blinks into the dimness for a moment - the fire has burnt down to coals - and then does a little quick mental checking of the calendar. It’s well past midwinter - the days are beginning to lengthen again, if only a little. In fact... “Oh...<em>shit</em>,” he says faintly, and all of his Wolves rouse, frowning down at him in worry. “I think my heat’s next week.”</p>
<p>There’s a brief pause, and then Eskel says, carefully, “Well, we’ll start preparing in the morning, then. Do you know yet whether you’ll want us in the room, or outside like last year?”</p>
<p>“Inside,” Jaskier says at once. “And -” he pauses, swallows hard, and reminds himself that he is their mate in all but marks, that they love him, that they will not refuse him this. “And I’d like you all to bite me, please.”</p>
<p>Lambert makes a tiny sound, a sharply indrawn breath. Geralt goes so still he might as well be made of marble. Eskel swallows, a shockingly loud noise in the sudden stillness.</p>
<p>“You’re sure, buttercup?” Lambert whispers.</p>
<p>Jaskier nods. “As sure as sunrise.”</p>
<p>Any bite that draws blood will leave a scar, of course - Jaskier’s frankly lucky none of his former alphas cared to mark him so permanently - but a mate-mark can only be given during an omega’s heat; there’s something in an omega’s blood during a heat which helps the mark to heal swiftly, and makes the scars that unmistakable silver.</p>
<p>Jaskier wants to bear his alphas’ marks, as silver as their swords, as the medallion he never removes. Wants them to place their claim on him, a claim he’s <em>chosen</em>. Wants to go out onto the Path next year with three silver bite-marks on his throat to show the world he’s claimed and kept and <em>loved</em>.</p>
<p>Eskel makes an almost wounded sound and curls in, tucking his face against Jaskier’s throat and clinging to him. Jaskier blinks in shock for a moment before he gets his wits about him and reaches up to wrap his arms around Eskel’s shoulders, holding the big alpha close. Geralt and Lambert curl around them both, Geralt humming a low soothing note deep in his throat, Lambert stroking Eskel’s hair.</p>
<p>Jaskier says, as quietly as he can, “Is that - not - do you not want -?”</p>
<p>“<em>Sweetling</em>,” Eskel rasps, sounding on the verge of tears, and clings tighter to him.</p>
<p>Lambert kisses Eskel’s shoulder. “He wants. <em>We</em> want,” he says. “Fucking hell, buttercup, we <em>definitely</em> want. Just...ah, hell, I’ll explain tomorrow, alright?”</p>
<p>“Alright,” Jaskier says, and turns his full attention to stroking Eskel’s back and murmuring soft words of affection until the big alpha uncurls at least a little, though he doesn’t loosen his hold on Jaskier.</p>
<p>That’s alright. Jaskier likes sleeping in his alphas’ arms.</p>
<p>The next day, after dagger practice, it’s Lambert who brings Jaskier down to the hot springs, and once he’s helped Jaskier scrub down and is lounging back with Jaskier in his arms, he does, as promised, explain.</p>
<p>“So there’s two parts to this, alright buttercup? The easy bit is about pack. Well. The hard bit’s about pack, too, sorta.”</p>
<p>Jaskier chuckles and cranes around to kiss him. Lambert wrinkles his nose. “Right. So. Y’know how mate-marks give...just a little empathy?”</p>
<p>Jaskier nods. A mate-mark binds alpha and omega together, granting them a very slight ability to read each other’s emotions even at a distance, far more accurate even than smell can provide. Jaskier’s heard rumors that well-matched pairs have stronger bonds, but that might just be wishful thinking. Although...he wouldn’t have guessed <em>packs</em> would work, two years ago, so maybe there’s something to mating bites that has been lost to time, as well.</p>
<p>Lambert confirms that almost instantly. “‘S stronger with an omega whose scent matches properly, at least that’s what the Wolf School teaches. And it was pretty damn strong with Remus.” He takes a deep breath. “Strong enough we felt him die. Which was fucking <em>awful</em>.”</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Jaskier breathes, and squirms around until he can wrap his arms tightly around Lambert. Lambert tucks his nose into the crook of Jaskier’s throat and breathes in deeply. “Lambert, I won’t - if you don’t want to have to go through that again, I can’t ask it of you -”</p>
<p>“Shush, buttercup, we all <em>want</em> to have that bond with you,” Lambert says, nipping gently at Jaskier’s shoulders before he raises his head. “It’ll be really fucking reassuring, actually, to know you’re alright even when we’re off hunting; yeah, someone’s always with you, but it’s still a <em>worry</em>, y’know?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Jaskier says. He hadn’t really thought about it, but that all makes sense.</p>
<p>“And we all want to mark you,” Lambert adds, raising one hand to trace a damp line down Jaskier’s throat. Jaskier can feel Lambert’s prick twitch. “Fuck, thinkin’ of you wearing our bites -” Lambert breaks off with a soft, heartfelt growl.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Jaskier says. “So that’s the easy bit, I’m guessing.”</p>
<p>Lambert nods. “The harder bit...alright. So when you’ve got a pack omega, there’s…” He trails off, frowning like he’s trying to find the right words. Jaskier waits as patiently as he can. “If it’s a good strong bond,” Lambert says at last, “the other alphas in the pack can...feel each other <em>through</em> the omega. If that makes sense.”</p>
<p>Jaskier’s eyes go wide. “You could all feel each other through Remus, then.”</p>
<p>Lambert nods again. “So when he died, we...lost that,” he says softly. “It was. It <em>helped</em>. The bond. Kept us all steadier. And Eskel...before we found you, buttercup, he was tryin’ to be that bond all by himself. Tryin’ to keep me from flying off the fucking handle all the time, tryin’ to keep Geralt from going <em>all</em> the fucking way mute, tryin’ to keep us <em>stable</em>.”</p>
<p>Jaskier nods. He remembers that, back in those first baffling, terrifying days, how Eskel was so clearly the bedrock of the pack. Still is, in a way, for all that the alphas orbit around Jaskier as though he’s their sun. Geralt is strongest, Lambert arguably cleverest, Jaskier the cherished omega, but it’s Eskel’s steadiness that holds them all together.</p>
<p>“So he’s not let himself think about getting that back,” Lambert continues softly. “About having that bond again, and getting to put down some of the weight of the whole godsdamned world. And now you’ve <em>offered</em>.” He kisses Jaskier, soft and almost chaste. “So yeah, he’s…”</p>
<p>“A little overwhelmed,” Jaskier concludes.</p>
<p>“That,” Lambert agrees. “But he wants to. We all want to.”</p>
<p>Jaskier nods and nestles closer, comforted as always by the warm clasp of Lambert’s arms around him. “Alright. Thank you for explaining.”</p>
<p>“Welcome, buttercup,” Lambert murmurs, and holds Jaskier close until the rest of the witchers come piling down the stairs to the hot springs, laughing and jesting and gloriously, loudly joyous.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Jaskier does decide to use the heat room, if only so that their bed won’t end up soaked with slick, but this time, it will be Vesemir and Gardis bringing food and water up to push through the flap in the door, because his alphas are all going to be inside with him.</p>
<p>Which is moderately terrifying, in the best possible way. Perhaps <em>exciting</em> is a better word. The alphas who bought and sold Jaskier like a rather disappointing party favor never found his heat scent particularly appealing, which was all to the good really, but Jaskier can remember his alphas <em>last</em> winter, half-desperate and smelling of undeniable lust as they waited out in the corridor for his heat to pass. Having them <em>in</em> the room...well, Jaskier won’t have to content himself with the wooden prick this year, he expects.</p>
<p>And even in the throes of heat, he knows, none of his alphas will ask him to do anything he would not wish to do outside of it. He need not fear emerging from the heat-haze to regret, or fear, or pain, or anything but sated contentment.</p>
<p>And, gods willing, three new marks upon his throat, as silver as his medallion.</p>
<p>Gardis laughs at him when Jaskier spends the last several days leading up to his heat drifting about in a sort of excited daze, and Vesemir shakes his head and smiles and won’t let Jaskier do anything in the kitchen that requires a knife, and both Aubry and Coën spend a lot of time giving him indulgent smiles, but Jaskier can’t bring himself to mind. He’s going to have his first proper heat with his alphas, and they’re going to mark him, and it’s going to be <em>wonderful</em>.</p>
<p>The last night before his heat is due to start, his pack sleeps in the heat room; there’s no point making him walk through the cold halls if they don’t have to, after all.</p>
<p>The day his heat starts, Jaskier wakes up warm, in the middle of a nest of blankets and pillows and alphas, in the dimness of a winter’s early morning. He’s not nearly as uncomfortable as he’d half expected to be, actually, which is probably because he has three naked alphas wound around him, and the whole room smells of them. His omega instincts don’t need to worry about getting his needs sated: there is <em>plenty</em> of alpha available.</p>
<p>Geralt wakes first, with a soft growl and a sudden flash of golden eyes in the dimness. Lambert and Eskel rouse a moment later, both of them burying their noses against Jaskier’s throat and breathing in, deep hungry breaths.</p>
<p>“Fuck, buttercup, you smell <em>amazing</em>,” Lambert murmurs.</p>
<p>Jaskier grins and shifts, and for the first time in his life he <em>relishes</em> the feeling of rising, half-desperate lust. “You all smell wonderful,” he replies.</p>
<p>“How d’you want us?” Eskel asks. “Name it and it’s yours, sweetling.”</p>
<p>Jaskier tries to think through the growing heat-haze; it isn’t easy. He can sort of remember the beautiful, filthy, <em>glorious</em> ideas his alphas had during his last heat, though, and he wants to make every single one of them happens, as well as a great many others - though he’s heard that properly partnered heats don’t take as long, so it’s possible he’ll run out of heat before he runs out of ideas. Ah well, he’ll always have next year.</p>
<p>“I want to ride Lambert,” he says, and Lambert whines softly, prick rubbing against Jaskier’s hip as he shifts. “And then I want Geralt to eat me out before <em>he</em> knots me. And then I want Eskel.”</p>
<p>“I think we can manage that,” Eskel says, sounding a little strangled. “And - do you still want our marks, Jaskier?”</p>
<p>“More than anything,” Jaskier says fervently. “Can you - does it work if you’re not in me?”</p>
<p>“Anytime during your heat,” Geralt says.</p>
<p>“Then I want all your marks at the same time,” Jaskier says, clinging to the last bits of coherency with all his might. “While Eskel’s got me knotted. Please.”</p>
<p>“If that’s what you want, you’ll have it,” Eskel promises, and Jaskier beams and stops trying to keep the heat-haze from taking him. He’s safe. His alphas have him.</p>
<p>Lambert rolls over onto his back, pulling Jaskier on top of him, and kisses him sweetly. Normally Jaskier would take his time with such a lovely kiss, really let himself enjoy it, but his skin is too hot and he <em>wants</em>, wants <em>everything</em>, and he pulls away from the kiss to fumble behind him for Lambert’s prick, deeply pleased to find it already hard and ready for him. He doesn’t need any preparation, not in heat; he sinks down onto Lambert’s prick with a gasp of satisfaction, and Lambert wraps his hands around Jaskier’s hips and stares up at him, golden eyes blown huge and dark with lust.</p>
<p>“That’s it, buttercup, take what you need of me,” he murmurs. “Fuckin’ - fucking <em>anything</em>, it’s yours.”</p>
<p>Jaskier should thank him, probably, but all his attention is given to the prick filling him up, the blessed <em>relief</em> of it. He gets his knees under him and starts to move, and Lambert’s hands on his hips urge him on, give him a little extra lift when he rises, pull him down again eagerly. Jaskier braces his hands on Lambert’s shoulders and lets himself <em>take</em>, not bothering to muffle the curses and desperate whines that fall from his mouth. “Lambert, Lambert, <em>Lambert</em> -”</p>
<p>He’s not sure whose hand wraps around his prick - it isn’t Lambert’s, those are still clamped on his hips, and he’ll have bruises there, glorious ones, and oh, he’s looking forward to that - but whoever it is, they twist their hand just so and Jaskier is spilling over their fingers and Lambert’s chest, shouting his pleasure, and Lambert growls deep and fierce and beautiful and yanks Jaskier down a little harder as he peaks, and his knot swells to fill Jaskier so <em>perfectly</em>.</p>
<p>Jaskier slumps down atop Lambert, not caring about the sticky spend smeared between them, and shudders with the aftershocks of pleasure. The heat-haze is...not <em>lifting</em>, exactly, but a lot less overwhelming than he’s used to. “‘S good,” he tells Lambert, who purrs and nuzzles at his hair.</p>
<p>“Really fucking good, buttercup,” he murmurs, and holds Jaskier close, stroking his back and purring softly, until his knot begins to shrink and Jaskier’s heat begins to rise again. “Alright, want to roll over and let Geralt clean you up a bit before he gets you fuckin’ filthy again?”</p>
<p>“Gods yes,” Jaskier says, and rolls over off of Lambert to sprawl out on the blankets, and Geralt <em>pounces</em>, looking half-feral with lust. It would be terrifying, except that it’s <em>Geralt</em>, and Jaskier doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to be scared of Geralt again.</p>
<p>Geralt sucks Jaskier’s prick down like it’s water in the desert, and Jaskier wails and writhes beneath him. In heat, it’s not <em>enough</em> - nothing but a knot is truly enough - but oh, it’s <em>good</em> all the same, and gets better when Geralt slides two fingers into him and crooks them just <em>so</em>. Jaskier peaks with a garbled shout that’s almost Geralt’s name, clawing at Geralt’s hair and the blankets, and Geralt rumbles with a purr that’s almost a growl, deep and reverberating.</p>
<p>And then he shoulders Jaskier’s legs further apart and wriggles down a little and licks over Jaskier’s rim, where his fingers are still buried deep. Jaskier braces his feet against the blankets and gropes to either side, and Eskel and Lambert take his hands, letting him cling as Geralt wrings wails of pleasure from his throat. Fuck, Geralt’s tongue is <em>always</em> absurdly talented, but in <em>heat</em> it’s almost unbearably good.</p>
<p>Geralt brings Jaskier howling over another peak, and Jaskier is distantly grateful for his alphas’ witcher strength, because he’s holding onto Eskel and Lambert’s hands tightly enough to damage a human. “Geralt!” he begs, and Geralt purrs deeply as he moves to cover Jaskier, sliding his fingers out and replacing them with his prick in a single smooth motion and then bracing his elbows on either side of Jaskier’s head, looming over him. Jaskier whines and bares his throat and winds his legs around Geralt’s hips, opening eagerly for Geralt’s heavy prick.</p>
<p>Geralt kisses him fiercely as his knot fills, and Jaskier peaks <em>again</em>, spilling hot between them, and whimpers into Geralt’s mouth. Geralt curls down over him, tucking his head into the curve of Jaskier’s throat, and pants hotly against his skin; Jaskier kisses the top of his pale head and lets go of Lambert and Eskel’s hands so he can pet Geralt’s shoulders.</p>
<p>The heat-haze ebbs for a long while, and Jaskier nestles happily into the blankets and the heavy, welcome weight of Geralt atop him, and dozes a little. When he wakes, cradled in Geralt’s arms but no longer knotted, Eskel coaxes him to eat some broth and applesauce and drink a little water, and Lambert wipes him down gently with a damp cloth, before the heat-haze begins to rise again.</p>
<p>“Eskel,” he gasps, and Eskel gathers him close, pulling Jaskier down on his back atop him like the omega is a blanket, his legs spread wide on either side of Eskel’s. Someone - Jaskier’s not sure which of his other alphas - helps guide Eskel’s prick into him, and Jaskier rocks down with a moan that turns into a shout as Eskel bucks his hips upwards. So good - how the fuck is it so <em>good</em>? Jaskier clutches at Eskel’s arms, knowing his nails are probably leaving welts, but Eskel is a witcher; there’ll be no marks on him by the time the sun rises again. Eskel responds with low, soothing purrs that reverberate up through his chest and into Jaskier’s bones, with rocking hips and gentle hands that keep Jaskier pinned to his chest, with hungry kisses pressed to the back of Jaskier’s neck.</p>
<p>Jaskier keens, and writhes - not trying to get away, never that, but trying to get <em>closer</em> - and Geralt and Lambert lean down together to mouth and lick at his leaking, desperate prick, and Jaskier peaks with a strangled scream.</p>
<p>Eskel growls, an almost subterranean sound, and wraps his arm around Jaskier’s waist to haul him down and onto Eskel’s knot, and Jaskier peaks <em>again</em>, vision hazing at the edges at the too-soon, too-sharp pleasure of it.</p>
<p>And then, in the clarity left behind as the heat-haze ebbs, he gasps, “Now, my alphas. Please. Mark me now.”</p>
<p>“Ours,” Eskel rumbles, as Geralt and Lambert scramble up and lean in, one on either side, and close their teeth gently, so gently, on the curves of Jaskier’s throat. “Our omega. Ours to keep, and cherish, and love.”</p>
<p>And he turns his head a little and sinks his teeth into the nape of Jaskier’s neck, just as Geralt and Lambert bite down hard.</p>
<p>Jaskier screams. It hurts - of course it hurts. But it feels <em>good</em>, too, a strange deep pleasure nothing like that of orgasm or anything else he’s ever felt before. A <em>settling</em>, almost, as though something that had always been just slightly awry has finally fit perfectly into place. Or perhaps simply the filling of a lack he had not even known was there to fill. Whatever it is, he screams through it, and sags back against Eskel with a sobbing gasp as the three witchers draw away again, their lips stained red.</p>
<p>He can feel them.</p>
<p>It’s not telepathy, nothing so strong and clear. But he can <em>feel</em> them, feel their lust and love and possessive, protective joy, feel their pure ecstatic relief as the bond settles and they can feel each other again. Can feel a tension deep in Eskel, so deep he’s never even realized it was there, finally relax; can feel Lambert’s simmering glee and Geralt’s quiet, heartfelt adoration.</p>
<p>His alphas. His <em>pack</em>.</p>
<p>“Jaskier,” Eskel murmurs.</p>
<p>“I’m alright,” Jaskier says. The pain is ebbing already, in fact; he’s sure he’ll have lovely silver scars before the night is over. “I’m - really good, actually.” He wiggles a little, and Eskel bites off a moan. “Really <em>really</em> good.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, you are, buttercup,” Lambert murmurs, and kisses him; the kiss is bitter and coppery with Jaskier’s own blood, but he can’t bring himself to mind. “Our buttercup.”</p>
<p>“Ours,” Geralt agrees, leaning in for his own kiss as Lambert pulls away. “Our mate.”</p>
<p>“My alphas,” Jaskier says contentedly, and shifts a little until he’s draped more comfortably over Eskel, who kisses his ear, radiating such utter happiness that Jaskier could almost cry.</p>
<p>“We are,” Eskel says quietly. “And what does our mate want of us, hm?”</p>
<p>Jaskier considers as carefully as he can. “Well,” he says at last, “first I’d really like a nap. Heats are very tiring, you know.”</p>
<p>Eskel laughs and turns slowly onto his side, curling around Jaskier and nuzzling at the still-sore bite on the back of his neck. Jaskier hums contentedly, wiggles a bit just to make both of them gasp at the way the motion tugs on Eskel’s still-full knot, and reaches out to gather Lambert close. Geralt considers the heap of them and then flops over Jaskier and Lambert both, a heavy glorious weight.</p>
<p>The rest of Jaskier’s heat passes in waves of pleasure. He’s never without at least one alpha touching him, never has to wait to be filled. He does not think he could ever get his fill of kisses, but his alphas come close; he barely has to <em>start</em> to want a kiss before someone’s lips are pressed to his. And he can feel, beyond even the drugging heat-haze and the endless pleasure of their touch, how much they love every second of this, how much pleasure <em>they</em> get from bringing him again and again to ecstasy.</p>
<p>Jaskier sleeps at last - a true sleep, not a heat-nap - curled between his mates, safe and sated in every possible way, and wakes to the bright song of a bird, out on the windowsill, caroling the coming joyous spring.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>With many thanks to the most marvelous beta a girl could ask for, the delightful RoS13, without whom there would be a lot more plot holes.</p><p>I'm on tumblr and discord; stop on by and say hello!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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